Christmas!

Christmas was fairly low-key for us this year. We invited some friends to join us for some roast turkey on the Sunday before Christmas, and it was fun to introduce turkey to our guests who had never seen a whole roasted turkey before. Thankfully the turkey turned out well! Our guests also brought some yummy Japanese food to share with us. Their food was gorgeously presented in a beautiful tiered urushi (lacquered) box called jubako. The top tier contained some home-cooked ebi (prawns), beef and boiled eggs, and the lower level had some delicious sekihan which is a traditional celebratory dish made with mochi (glutinous) rice and adzuki beans. We then enjoyed some trifle and homemade dango for dessert after. It was good food and great company, and lots of cultural exchange! We also played some games on Rob's wii and they looked like they enjoyed it. Here are some photos on the day:

Rob carving the turkey:


The yummy food our guests brought:


Our guest cooking the dango in our kitchen. The dango was made with tofu and mochi-ko (glutinous rice flour) and hand rolled by our guests' two daughters!


For Christmas day itself, although both Rob and I had to work, we managed to put together another roast dinner with a whole chook to enjoy with Kim's company. Christmas is semi-celebrated in Japan in the sense that there are Christmas decorations and sales around, but it is not recognised as a holiday. However the New Year in Japan is pretty big and the week-long holiday period that I'm enjoying now makes up for the lack of one during the Christmas period.

Here's wishing a Happy New Year to everyone who reads my journal!