Not only do people's hearts grow at Christmas, but so do Japanese apartments...well, mine must have, anyway! Yokatta! I was delightfully surprised to have so many people show up for my Christmas party on Sunday. The bus station manager, the man who runs the Hokka Hokka Tei shop, my eikaiwa students, my adopted Japanese moms, my crazy inakajin friend...even a handful of neighborhood kids showed up! In the top photo they're holding up the Christmas trees they colored, and then you can see them drawing AmpanMan, Santa and Christmas dinosaurs on my windows (with dry erase markers - thanks for that idea, Chris and Stacey - BRILLIANT). 
I thought this shot was so cute. I was showing the kids how to trace a star - and they were just so eager. They made these really cool 3-D stars, which you see hanging from the curtain rod in the last photo. They reeeally liked decorating the stars with glitter glue....
Here's the whole gang! We ended with Christmas crackers, so I made the kids don the crowns and grabbed a picture of them in front of all their little Christmas projects that we did. If you look closely, you see a pink paper on the left - apparently they were excited about coming to my party, and they made this for me. It's a picture of me (with Japanese hair) and they wrote about how much fun they were going to have and they hoped I'd like their dance. Haven't yet seen the dance, but I'll let you know how that goes...
3 comments:
What a blessing you are to all your friends - and look at the smiles on the children who are benefiting from your kindness and love. You have made a memory in their hearts that will stay with them forever, Tracey. I'm sure I speak for lots of people when I say, "I wish I could have been there."
Happy New Year! With hugs and all my love,
Aunt Barbara
Yah! I'm with Grandma!!(Or Aunt)!! Haha
Love
Lindsay
"By their fruits you shall know them" is a comment made by the wisest man who ever lived, Jesus. By the evidence of your labor with the Japanese people, Tracey, we can see that we have a cousin obviously happy, giving, loving and a real treasure for all of the people, whom you serve with your unique, varied, and many talents.
Cousin Bill(Ryan)
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