Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

12/25/2005, Seattle trip day 2: Christmas Day

Christmas was just wonderful, thanks to a ton of hard work on my mom's part.  My mom did an extraordinary amount of work to make the house pretty and orchestrate a good sized dinner for some friends and us.  Everything turned out beautifully.

Our Christmas tree.

Stockings hung by the chimney with care.

In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.  There were cute little decorations everywhere.

Even on the doors.  My mom was kind enough to polish the doorknobs while she was at it.

Everything was beautiful.

Preparing dinner

I just love this picture of my mom, which Akemi took.  My mom was trying to show Akemi the turkey.  (They don't generally have turkeys in Japan.  Akemi had never seen one.) But, I rather like my mom in this picture.  It's charming.

I helped a little.  Akemi helped a lot.

For dinner, we had Will & Sandy (very close friends of mine), Phil (Will's son), Lotchie (my mom's friend), and David (Lotchie's son).  It seemed like the perfect size.  Furthermore, it was the first time Will and Sandy had ever joined us for Christmas.  Really nice.

Will carved the turkey.  I threw this in here because I rather like this picture of Will.  Not sure why, but I do.

Christmas dinner, at last!

For the first few minutes of dinner, while everyone else was eating, I was busy snapping pictures, trying to capture the pretty food while before it was devoured.

Spiced fruit.

Gravy for the turkey.

Green beans, etc.

Finally, I dug in.  Everything was delicious.  No surprises.

Phil, Lotchie, and David (left to right).

After dinner, Akemi and I sang Christmas carols together.  Before we came, we looked up lyrics to a few tunes.  She learned them in English.  I learned the Japanese translations of the same songs.  It was fun.

Later on, I sang the 12 Days Of Christmas, to go along with a themed gift from Lotchie.

When it was all over, we all crashed, big time.  We were all tired, but none was more tired than my mom.  We worked really, really hard in preparation for this trip.

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