Holidays!

Hey everyone! Getting ready for the holiday season? I am here! This weekend my youngest host sister and I did the whole Christmas decorating thing. My host mom took us shopping to get everything we would ever need to make the house seasonal. I took the opportunity to purchase a 200 yen (about a $1.70) Christmas CD called ‘Jingle Bells to Guitar’. Yeah, red flags should have gone up there, but I was desperate for some holiday music. Anyway, we played it during the car ride home and it was hysterical. The first track sounds like some kind of Hawaiian rock. Whoever made the CD took the chance to be artistically creative and alter the songs. Jingle Bells is the worst. And someone tell me if O Happy Day is a Christmas song. But despite the music we were successful in our decorating venture! You can see our tree below. We had some trouble getting the star tree topper on so we used a bow from another ornament (there’s a nakey angel out there now). We also used ‘snow in a can’ to make festive shapes on the windows. We made the mistake of putting Santa in front of the reindeer. I guess it’s time he pulls his own weight! Christmas here is really a commercial holiday though, or as I’ve noticed, the couple’s holiday. All the girls in my class who don’t have the required accessory of ‘boyfriend’ are all bummed out. I was telling them that in America Christmas is mostly a family holiday and this girl goes, ‘so that's why Americans get together with their families’. It must have been a great mystery to her as why we all gather with relatives during the holidays... Like maybe we were plotting something sinister. Well, I suppose not all Americans get it either. And ending on a happy note, winter break is a week away! No uniform during break! Yay!