Merii Kurisumasu

Merry Christmas from Japan! 

 Last year, our little family was apart on the 25th, so this year we were happy to all be together in Sasebo. We celebrated by getting the largest tree the base had to offer - it is about 8 feet tall! Nathan promised it would fit on our raised tatami area and after a little trimming to fit the angel on top, he was right.

The Japanese celebrate Christmas for fun here. Wilson's school had a pool party with Santa and they sent home gifts with the boys. Here is Wilson singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in Japanese.

We spent the month chasing Santa around town. The boys were really into Santa this year, so it was sweet watching them react to all of our sightings. Only Archie was a little underwhelmed. 

I got a few pictures of the more exotic places we saw him.

Christmas Eve was our most exciting Santa day as we saw Skinny Santa scuba diving at the aquarium and then on the way home we passed some Biker Santas out for a ride.

It was Archie's first Christmas this year. In typical Archie fashion, he smiled his way through the day.

We had a big ham dinner all ready to cook and enjoy but at the last minute decided to go to our favorite sushi place down the street. Who likes doing dishes on Christmas anyway??

We had a wonderful, low-key Christmas here in Japan. Of course we also spent time thinking about loved ones across the globe. We put in a lot of time on Skype trying to celebrate with family in the States.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday!