Happy New Year 2024

Happy New Year!

This year the Bear Family had a fun December with lots of different activities and a good start to 2024.

In December we were able to hold the English Club Christmas Cafe again, and we even opened up participation so more people could come. We had 8 participants, plus the three teachers and our families. The ALTs and I prepared quite the spread of cookies and drink to share, and I prepared a Christmas themed pictionary game to play. I was very pleased with how well the event went.

There was also a Global Gourmet Food Festival (with live music) held in December, which featured food stalls representing different countries such as Japan, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and America. I agreed to run a “food stall” myself and prepared grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I had prepared 24 servings and sold out within the first couple of hours!

The kindergarten held their annual Christmas Party. I was asked to dress-up as Santa and hand out presents to the 0-2 year-olds again this year. The 2 year-olds were excited to see “Santa” but the babies were wary of me, haha. Only a couple of kids actually cried though, so I’ll call it a win. I had finished in time to participate in the festivities with the 3-6 year-olds. We all gathered out in the big hall to sing a popular kids Christmas song then Santa made his appearance. He answered a few questions from the kids and then handed out presents. The kindergarten always prepares a big all-you-can-eat buffet lunch, and it was delicious. The teachers even got to have 2 slices of cake!

Kindergarten Christmas Party Lunch

Unfortunately, the flu, strep throat, and COVID were pretty rampant in town so many kids had to miss out on the festivities. Even several of the teachers came down with fevers (one even realized they had a fever right after the Christmas party and left partway through the day!). Even Baby Bear came down with strep throat during his last week of school. I’ve been masking at the kindergarten lately in hopes that I won’t catch what’s going around.

We had a lovely low-key Christmas this year. Baby Bear and I baked a bunch of cookies and I made a chocolate cake this year instead of the typical strawberry short cake. We also had some leftover ham from Thanksgiving that we put in the freezer, so Christmas dinner was a breeze and the cake turned out great!

This year’s Christmas cake!

I did end up working on Christmas day, but at least I could watch Baby Bear open up his presents in the morning before I left. This year Santa brought him a stocking full of snacks, a Pokemon encyclopedia, small lego sets, and a Jack Skellington plushy. We also got him a kanji dictionary, ice skates, and a new set of pajamas. He was very excited, but I think the present he is enjoying the most was a Nintendo Switch from grandma and grandpa.

We had a very relaxed New Year’s Eve. We all ate instant noodles for dinner then Papa Bear and I stayed up until midnight. I got up early the next morning to watch the first sunrise (that wasn’t much of anything since it was overcast). My work is usually closed during the first week of the new year so all employees get a nice long break. Turns out I have a bunch of PTO left so I took an additional week off for a lovely 2-week vacation.

We had a lot of fun just relaxing at home, watching movies, reading books, and playing lots of video games. I also started a new knitting project so it was nice to have some time to knit everyday. It was a great way to start the year.

On another note, the Noto Peninsula on the west side of Japan experienced a very strong earthquake and tsunami on New Years Day that caused extensive damage. The loss of life and destruction that happened in Noto is heartbreaking. We hope the area is able to recover quickly.