Waiting for Christmas

I am waiting for Christmas.  To be fair, I am always waiting for Christmas.  I have spent most of my life waiting for Christmases, most of the time to great success.  Strangely enough, I would say that my most memorable Christmases also happen to be the ones that felt the least Christmasy of all.  There was swimming in an outdoor pool in Kuala Lumpur when I was 10.  Then there was Christmas mass in Thailand where I passed out down a couple of cement steps at age 18.  And then Christmas in Cuzco, Peru with the Nativity Market and small children with big fireworks at age 20.  Then there was the Big Buddha of Kamakura and a Tokyo dance-off last year, age 22.  As magical and memorable as all of those experiences were, I was waiting for Christmas, and it never came.

So this year I am waiting for a Christmas two years coming.  Add the fact that I will be family-less for the first Christmas of my entire life, and you can bet I am doing everything in my power to make sure it gets here as promised.

1. Christmas music?  Check.  I have replaced every single Sean Paul, techno, and ABBA song on my iPhone with 4.11 GB of Christmas music.  For your information, that is 2.6 DAYS of Christmas music.  Yep, definitely "check".
2. Baked goods?  Check.  I bought a real oven(!!!) and have been baking enough to feed a congregation and keep my apartment at a reasonable temperature.  (SmittenKitchen's Banana Bread and James Beard's Amazing Persimmon Bread are my two recent faves, the fact that I can top off my hot chocolate with the leftover bourbon notwithstanding.)
3. Christmas tree?  .....ummm, check?  My Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is standing proudly (as proudly as a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree can stand) in the center of my table giving my apartment a true Indie Christmas charm.
4. Christmas cheer?  Oh yeah, in spades.  I have always had more Christmas cheer than the average person, and this year I am sharing the wealth, whether they want it or not.  Aside from showing up to school every morning smiling at the Hanson Christmas song in my headphones, I made Christmas cards with the special ed class today, am making Christmas cookies with my English club tomorrow, am going to help run a high school Christmas party on Thursday, and will go up to Wajima this weekend to help Katy's HS English Club prepare a traditional Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner.  And that is just this week.  Next week is more cookies, two elementary school Christmas parties, caroling for charity, and an orphanage Christmas party.  I love it.
5. Christmas presents?  Check check check.  Katy, Karen, Creighton, and I went to Takayama, Gifu last Saturday for an afternoon of Christmas shopping for presents that are once again legal for me to mail to the United States.  Woooo!

Though I have yet to make a red and green paper chain, I would say that this year I am doing a fantastic job of waiting for Christmas.

And I even had the good sense to buy myself an early Christmas present with which to document all of this waiting.  ;)  That's right.  I, having lived camera-less since August, have finally gone out and gotten myself a camera.  And what a camera it is.  Oh boy.  It is a Canon G12, and by far the most beautiful piece of technology I have ever owned.   I am looking forward to some serious bonding time during my upcoming Tokyo vacation.  More on my grand plans for said vacay at a later date.  In the mean time, some documented Christmas cheer: photos from our Takayama excursion, with a brief stop at a charming cafe outside of Shirakawa-go.

 pretty mountains and trinkets from the charming cafe, including a pair of Maggie's socks - functional and organic

After a brief pause, we were off to Takayama again to enjoy (repeatedly) sampling the soy-sauced, grilled mochi kebabs, wander up and down a street of lovely traditional shop after lovely traditional shop, try my camera out on the scenery (wouldja look at that cloud definition?!), and generally have a lovely time.

After a hard day of shopping, we needed a little ramen to replenish our Christmas cheer before a little frolicking on Main Street.  The third photo is, apparently, three interpretations of the misheard instruction, "Pretend you're French." 

All in all it was a perfectly lovely day followed by a perfectly lovely evening full of snacks of every shape and size including a rather questionable looking paté, the requisite Christmas viewing of "Love Actually", just a little bourbon-laced hot chocolate, and Christmas cheer, in spades.

 

My apologies

My apologies, dear blog.  I have been neglecting you of late, and for that, I am sorry.  Forgetting is so easy with commercial free TV downloads and food blogs (my latest obsession and an excellent way to pass the time at work when I can't come up with anything else to laminate) and naps and trips and... I forget that I get joy from writing, that reworking phrases and running-on sentences is fun, and most of all that rereading what I have written brings back moments that might have otherwise disappeared forever.  So for all of the moments that I have already lost, I'm sorry I waited too long.

Here is one moment that has remained.

It was Christmas morning in Tokyo.  I think it is fair to say that Joe was somewhat less than delighted to be dragged out of bed and to the train station so we could head an hour south to a city called Kamakura whose main claim to fame is the Kamakura Daibutsu (literally, the Kamakura Big Buddha).

Joe:  "How big is this Buddha?"
Me: "I don't know.... big."
Joe: "Like, how big?  A couple stories?"
Me: "Look, I don't know.  It's a big Buddha, okay?  It's probs gonna be pretty big."
Joe: "grumblegrumblegrumble..."

We did a bit of wandering around the town before striking out towards the Big Buddha.  We paused at a shrine along the way.

Joe: "Is this it?  Where's the Buddha?"
Maggie: "Maybe, look, I don't know.  I don't think this is it, cause it's supposed to be big, and I don't see any gigantic peaceful looking dudes, do you?"
Joe: "What is this then?  Why aren't we going to see the Buddha?"
Maggie:  ".................."

Photos from the unidentified shrine, complete with mini-Buddha filled cave.

 
After wandering around said unidentified temple and garden, we arrived at the gate to the main event: The Big Buddha.

...walking along the path....

Joe: "Is this it?"
Me: "Yeah, I think so."
Joe: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Well, that sign right there says 'Kamakura Daibutsu', so yeah, it looks that way."
Joe: "So where's the... oh...... daaaaaamn....... that is a big Buddha."
Me: "Uh huh."