Winter Holidays

Mmmmm...The weather is getting colder. In the states, we all look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas with family, and then a nice New Year's party to blast in a New Year, but in Japan, there is no Thanksgiving of course, and then Christmas and New Years are celebrated in reverse, spending time with your bf or gf on Christmas, and then spending time with family on New Years.
Christmas is decorated with lights and some families buy a tree, but I've been giving lessons on the winter holidays, and no one knew about mistletoe or gingerbread houses, which everyone got very excited about. I am looking forward to baking one soon. Maybe I will take it to school as a display. I have decorated the townhouse in lights and made a display of fall leaves made of recycled paper for the front. People really seem to get a kick out of it. Its pretty cute; when I turn on the lights, whole families will smile brightly and point, or slow their cars down to look. It makes me happy that I am brightening their day.
Today is Shinpei's birthday. I bought him a jacket which he looks very good in. Next week is Christmas, but I still haven't gotten him anything. He has gotten me two things, one of which he is being very secretive about. Tehehehe.
We started working on our New Year's postcards, which I will probably be sending instead of Christmas cards this year to the States and Mexico, too. We were handed down a printer, so we will print out a design for the year of the Tiger.
The day after Christmas we will head over to Nagasaki to see his family. That day for lunch, we will eat at a renound steakhouse. The next day I believe we are going to go to a themepark copy of a Dutch village called Haustenbos with his brother and his brother's girlfriend. At some point, we will go to a new Aquarium exhibit in Sasebo with his dad. Finally, New Years will come and we will spend three days eating with family, visting family, and staying in or driving around, because all the shops are closed. I miss the holiday decorations abroad, but the same feeling of people getting together with family is there. There is one decoration that is pretty common, and that is the combination of Pine, Baboo and Plum into an arrangement, and placed outside the front door.
The mountains have been lovely, bathed in mist and fog, brightening into sunny days.