It occurs to me that I can’t write on my blog as easily as I once did. I still maintain that it is the lack of a desk that causes this, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I can be pretty damn lazy. Especially now that I’ve become sucked into the West Wing.
Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas this year, mostly ‘cuz I didn’t spend it with my family and ‘cuz in Japan, it’s just not as big of a holiday as it is to us back home. It probably didn’t help that I had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On the bright side, the higher-ups slid everyone’s schedule to finish by 5:40 or 6:30 PM instead of 11:00 like it’s been for all of December, so go team.
Four days before Mike and Anna’s Christmas party, they had us over for dinner. And by us, I mean me and Steve only. Anna had sent us a message about it like a week before and asked us to dress “semi-formal” — a fact which seemed to slip both of our minds. It wasn’t until I was on the bus half way to their apato that I remembered this little fact. Needless to say, I felt like a huge jack ass for showing up in jeans and hoodie. I felt only mildly better when Steve gesture to his own jeans and T-shirt…but still. My brother was wearing a tie for crying out loud.
Anyway, Mike and Anna wanted to have us over for “Christmas” dinner ‘cuz, well, we’ve been pretty good friends for a little over a year now and they wanted to do something special to celebrate the holiday. Anna, being the amazing wonder cook that she is, made ham steaks with a honey glaze to make up for the fact that we can’t get a good ham in this country, pork ribs, mashed potatoes, sauted (with the special accent mark on the “e”) vegetables, and managed to find British Christmas pudding for dessert. We listened to Christmas music and sat down at the table like…grown-ups for lack of a better term. It was…really amazing. They also gave us our Christmas presents at that time. It kills me how generous Mike and Anna can be. I mean, neither one of them were working during December and they still manage to do something like this.
Just kills me.
Christmas Eve day I had to work, but it was only for five lessons so I really didn’t notice much. I copped out on the White Elephant gift and just bought a Starbucks gift card ‘cuz I’m lame and couldn’t think of anything else. (They did it proper, not like the way we used to at Al’s parties with the whole gag gift factor.)
Again, Mike and Anna had a lovely spread for dinner. Anna didn’t cook the chicken, she and Mike bought them from Costco — and those of us who remembered last Thanksgiving reminded Mike several times throughout the night not to overdose on the chicken again — and spent the evening as friends do — eating, laughing, and enjoying each others’ company. The White Elephant was good fun and we all seemed to end up with nice but affordable gifts.
Christmas Day really didn’t feel like it if anything ‘cuz again, I had to work. I made it a point to go to Starbucks again to get a Chocolate Mint Mocha since I had the feeling they would be gone by the next day (I was right). I spent the day trying to write and fix a lesson plan that I’d been working on since Sunday, but again, things at work have been less than exciting…but I don’t really want to get into that right this second, so I’m just gonna skip over that part and get right to how I spent the evening.
I’d made plans with Katrina to just hang out for the evening. Since Japan has this tradition about Christmas cake, I went to Morozoff (the place where I used to buy cheesecakes a lot) and bought a chocolate roll cake. I was a little surprised to find that they still had some since it was well after 6 PM and a lot of other places have you special order Christmas cakes, but I considered myself lucky and bought the damn thing. It even came with this Christmas decoration thing and candles. Not sure why it came with candles, but it did. I think I freaked out the poor clerk when after I wished her a Merry Christmas, though. The look on her face was most amusing. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time. Anyway, I had me a cake and made my way down to the platform.
While I was standing there, out of the corner of my eye I see this box appear beside me. It was kind of intrusive so I was forced to look up. Rob stood there holding a pizza box from Slices. His Christmas present to me. I had to laugh because I’d been thinking about ordering a pizza all day and thought that they probably wouldn’t be open. It probably helps to have someone like Rob ‘cuz he’s pretty tight with the Slices people. So much so that they let him go behind the counter and the like. Anyway, it was pretty cool of him.
Katrina and I ended up watching Firefly. I hate to say it, but I’m not much of a fan of “Bushwhacked” — don’t get me wrong, it has its great moments like “Have you ever been with a warrior woman?” and the like…but the episode just seems to drag to me. Even though it’s the same length as all the others, it feels longer than the pilot. We got as far as “Shindig” before we called it a night.
I also made sure to call my mom. You know how sometimes you can just tell the person on the other end is grinning and is just so happy to hear from you? Yeah. It was one of those phone calls. I’d caught my brother and my “cousin” (family friend, you know how it is) on instant messenger on my Christmas Day morning, your Christmas Eve, and asked them both to wish everyone in my family a Merry Christmas. She said she was pleased to have gotten that message and some such. My dad was apparently happy to get the golf clubs from me and my brother…and gosh, I was happy to given them to him. Kinda wish I had known about it, but you know how it is. My family is just like that. It’s not like we don’t try, it’s more that my parents are very particular about their things. She told me she put my Christmas card up by the tree and they took pictures, and you’re damn right I made them put up a tree. (A phone call to my parents a two weeks before revealed the fact that they weren’t going to put one up ‘cuz I wasn’t home. I was plenty outraged about that — not really really, but I told my mom they had to put one up whether I was there or not and take pictures.)
It was a nice conversation and not for the first time this month did I wish I was home. Hell, I made it a point to not open Christmas cards and presents until Christmas and didn’t even realize I could open them until Anna and VoW were like “Did you like what we got you/your Christmas card?” (respectively).
So that was my Christmas holiday. Not bad for my first one away from home, but I really hope that I’ll be home for the next Christmas.