A taste of home

I'm briefly checking in from our holidays north-west of Tokyo. I enjoyed making these this afternoon. Fruit mince pies (known as "mince pies" by some, I believe, but in Australia "mince pies" have meat in them).

Christmas when you're living overseas involves making your own traditions, these often are versions of what you've known in your home country. These pies are readily available in Australia and I would never make them there because they are too fiddly. But in Japan you can't buy them (at least I've never seen them, the foreign food here tends to be Asian or American, not Australian/British). So making them seems justified, a small taste of home. A totally delicious taste of home!

Another aspect of doing Christmas well overseas is doing things with the friends who are local to you. We've already had a couple of Christmas parties (one school one, one with friends) and we're sharing some of our Karuizawa/Miyota-holiday-traditions with friends who are staying nearby for a couple of days. 

Christmas Day we have another family join us and then on Boxing Day (next Tuesday) hopefully we'll still have some of these pies left for when some UK/Finnish/Peruvian friends will join us for morning tea. If not, then I guess I'll just have to make some more!

Have you celebrated Christmas overseas? What did you do that helped connect you with your home culture?