So this year what does Christmas look like at your place? I am of course assuming you celebrate Christmas. Perhaps you celebrate the New Year instead, like families in Japan do. Or perhaps there is some other end of year rights that you follow.
Our family being half NZ and half Japanese usually does both. How lucky are my kids to celebrate Christmas AND New Year in a fairly hard out way? I have always struggled to make Christmas something special, but being in Japan it can be a real struggle since it is often a regular workday. So, since most people who go to work are not around, we’ve had to do some Tricky or sneaky things to get Christmas to happen. For example, telling the kids that Santa came a day early or when they were super young just moving Christmas old together to the closest Saturday or Sunday they really didn't know but now they are much older it's harder to pull the wool over their eyes so to speak.
This year will be a particularly interesting Christmas for our family. On the 23rd of December, we will hopefully be flying from Gothenburg in Sweden via Amsterdam to Osaka where we hopefully pass our PCR tests and be allowed to enter Japan. We will be in self-quarantine for two weeks starting on the 24th. So this Christmas is going to be a very special one indeed. My son became very upset the other day thinking that Christmas was canceled. It may not be our dream Christmas that is for sure but at least we will have sushi this year!
Sushi is our favorite Christmas food to have in Japan because it is incredibly difficult to find a turkey or other Christmas foods that we would traditionally eat in New Zealand. At least everyone feels like they have had something special if we have a tray of expensive Sushi from the home delivery sushi shop. Really Christmas is about having a feast of some kind so why not have a feast that you like rather than a traditional Christmas Feast that perhaps you don't actually like! Or perhaps it doesn't even match the weather where you live this is especially true if you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are trying to have Christmas dinner and it's really hot outside.
So I decided to ask some of the listeners of the Transformations with Jayne podcast what kind of things they are doing this year that might be different from regular years.
Make sure you listen to hear what they had to say!
Mentioned in this episode is also these gingerbread biscuits:
Jayne's Podcast Consulting: https://www.jaynenakata.com/podcastconsulting
Andreia Olaru: https://www.andreiaolaru.com/dream-plan-launch/