Not feeling festive?

How do you “do” Christmas when you’re not “feeling festive”? 

Now I understand that my life is really quite different to many of yours in this respect. I do not live near family and will not be celebrating Christmas with them. In fact I’ve celebrated very few Christmases with my family in the last 21 years! So I don’t really have much experience of all the pressure that families put on one another at this time of year.

I also live in a land where “Christmas” isn’t an overwhelming factor in life. I remember being surprised to see Christmas everywhere in Australia last time I was there in December (2018). The receptionist at the doctor was all decked out in Christmas gear. The pharmacy next door gave me my medication in a red paper bag covered in white stars and Christmas greetings. In Japan you have to work a bit harder to find such things, and mostly it’s in shops, churches, and of course in my own home. Before the pandemic we saw more at our school, with weekly concerts, decorated hallways, lights on the grounds etc. But I’m rarely at school these days and because I don’t have kids in music programs, I’m not invited to concerts.

People in church-based ministries (not our family) are usually very busy this time of year, as Christmas is the easiest time of the year in Japan to invite people to hear about Jesus, so there are lots of events. Not so much these last two years, though.

In fact in Japan, if you aren’t a self-starter, you might miss Christmas altogether. It can be a little lonely if you’re used to celebrating with family. But we’ve got our small family routines and traditions that mean it’s just a quiet, at-home affair.

But back to my first question: how do you deal with the season if you aren’t in the mood for festivity? 

A couple of weeks ago I struggled to get my head into the right place to come up with social media posts for our mission for December. I wasn’t feeling festive. I think, even beginning to feel a little jaded. I mentioned this to a couple of friends and one later shared this short article that helped: https://m.facebook.com/547967600/posts/10157506078937601/?d=n

It’s just a Facebook post, so I’m not sure if you can read it. To summarize. The author’s family was tasting grief and she went to a candlelight service at their church as she usually did. She writes: 

I felt like an imposter. I was a cloud of grief and darkness amidst a cheerful celebration. I felt guilty for dampening the time of rejoicing 

As I sat I found myself talking to Jesus. "I'm ruining your party," I told him. 

It was his response in that moment that changed Christmas for me forever. He told me, “Cassie I came to that manger as a baby not for those in celebration, but for those in mourning. I came for you. In this moment. Right here.”

She’s right. Jesus came, not to be celebrated with tinsel and shallow joy. He came because this world is in pain. We are hurting and needed him to come to comfort us, to save us.

So, I girded my loins and pushed on to do the usual things we do at this time of year. Not with a light heart, because it’s not been a light year. I continue to grieve the losses, to feel the sadness and confusion, the frustration and angst. But I also remember my Saviour who actually chose to enter this sad, confusing, painful world for me. He didn’t have to. I don’t know what kind of grief he felt leaving the fellowship of the Trinity for life in a human body. It’s beyond my understanding. But because he did, I choose to trust him and celebrate him.

I’m thankful that we don’t live in a place where we have to do lots of events just because it is December and that’s what you do. I’m glad for the quiet of the season that’s coming, when school finishes and we have a brief hiatus before the craziness of January begins. I’m hopeful that I can spend time resting in the love of Jesus, waiting on him.

(And I tried multiple times and ways to get a photo to load on this post, but could not. Sigh.)

Celebrating

This week in September has been a week of celebrations for nearly two decades of my life now. 19 years ago yesterday David and I got married and five years later our second son was born in the same week as our anniversary. David's birthday is also next week, so it often is a busy time.

Here's our teenager's cake: It seems he's still okay with "themed" cakes, as long as he gets to eat them. Design credit goes to the maths teacher in the house (I just baked a rectangular cake and he made this out of it, and used almost all the cake)!

Our newly 14 year old doesn't like parties, but it happy to celebrate with the family. He loves chocolate, though! So on Sunday we went to a local Chocolate Cafe for morning tea after church. It was fun. We sat around the table recalling good memories we have of our son/brother.

Yesterday we had plans for the two of us to go out for our anniversary, but they blew apart when a typhoon strolled into town and cancelled the school events that our boys were going to be a part of (and eat dinner at). So we ended up back at the same shopping centre, five of us. It is big enough, though, and they are big enough, that we could eat separately. They ate in the food court on the third floor (almost) independently ordering their own food. And we had Chinese in a restaurant on the first floor. It was short and simple, but it worked. Next year for our 20th we'll have to try to come up with plans that are a little more fancy . . . and robust.

Now I need to consider what to do for David's birthday next week. He's a low-key kind of guy, much like the majority of our family. So it will probably be a quiet affair.

Happy Seventh Blog-Birthday!

Today is the seventh birthday of my blog, this blog! No big give aways or self-promotion here. But I am pinching myself, seven years is a long time. 2,285 blog posts! That's an average of 326.4 posts per year. Wow!


I've had a lot of fun on this anniversary in the past, asking questions and getting comments. In fact I think that is one of the best things about blogging: getting feedback from people.

Other things I love about blogging are:

• It helps me process life as it's going on in my life.
• It's fun to look back on things I've recorded (like a public diary, I guess).
• Connecting with other bloggers (though that seems to be happening less and less, I've outlasted many who were blogging seven years ago).
• It's a great vehicle for sharing things I'm learning.

So, here are my slightly random questions for you (answer them all, or only one, I don't mind):

1. What do you like to do for your birthday, an ideal birthday?

2. How many countries have you been to, how many have you lived in?

3. Where do you feel most 'on the edge of ordinary' in your life?

4. Is there a blog post on this blog that sticks in your memory?

5. What's one thing you'd like to know about Japan?

6. What's one thing you'd like to know about Australia?

7. What's one thing you'd like to know about missionary life?

Snapshots from my day

This was Yesterday. 

Morning
I worked on the computer from when the boys left till 10. Then I headed to school for the start of a crazy day. I dropped by the library to pick up some books about the Human Brain (a topic for a future post about a big project one son is doing). Then I popped on my Santa Hat and joined the 5th Grade class for their Christmas party.


I got them going on some Charades and then a collaborative building activity (making a Christmas tree out of just a few materials like paper plates, chopsticks and straws). Unfortunately we ran out of time to play the Chocolate Game (see here).

Trying to make a Christmas tree. Alas this group ran out of
time.

After that I shuttled back and forth between the 5th and 3rd grade classrooms taking in both parties. I've got to say, though, the 5th graders had the best food! Home made fudge topping on ice-cream, plus stacks of home cooked goodies.

Afternoon
After all that food before midday, three of us weren't very hungry for lunch. One boy ended up having lunch at 3pm!

At 1.30 I headed off to spend a couple of hours with my language exchange friends. We had a great time, as we usually do, over our coffee/tea in a small restaurant.

One of the things we talked about is this Japan Times article I read during the week. It talks about how Japanese school students are mostly taught English using their own alphabet and pronunciation, which means that English words get very mangled. Japanese has less sounds than English, for starters they only have five vowel sounds. 

For example, when you use Japanese pronunciation, brush and blush sound exactly the same! Here are a number of other examples, that I blogged about a few years ago.

Not only do English words get mangled, but words get attributed to English that aren't actually English, for example sutaduresu taiya, Japanese for "studless tyre". This is something you won't find in a dictionary (but you will find it with a Google). My language exchange partners thought this was pretty funny.

Often, too, the meaning gets changed, as meanings often do when you borrow words from other languages. The word "mansion" has been borrowed by the Japanese language, but it doesn't mean a large house occupied by one family unit, it means a large block of apartments, particularly newer apartments.

Here's some sage advice posted as a comment on the Japan Times article as a comment:

When I was learning Japanese, my professor made is learn hiragana/katakana [Ed's note: Japanese alphabets] the first few weeks, and then the classes were taught solely with them; the English alphabet was absolutely forbidden. It should be done this way with English classes. it may be difficult at first but it results in learning much more quickly than relying on your native alphabet as a crutch.

I totally agree, we were taught using the Japanese alphabets. I now find it hard to read Japanese if it is written in English letters.

While we were inside discussing these fascinating things, the heavy clouds finally began to drizzle. And drizzle at about 5 ˚C just isn't very cheerful! (The drizzle continued all night and all day today too.)

Evening
At 5.15 the family headed off the school. For the final wrestling event of 2013. We watched our wrestlers face up against Yokota Air Base's wrestling team. There were some good bouts, at least from a CAJ point of view.

Our son got a wrestle and pinned his opponent. His fourth pin in four bouts this season. Not bad! His first shot nearly went badly wrong, but he managed to extract himself and

Just as the pin was called. It looks like they're lounging,
but in truth they were both straining as hard as they could.

nailed his opponent in only 31 seconds.

The award for the happiest wrestler goes to the son of colleagues of ours. It's his first year wrestling and he's had some tough bouts (he has no competition in the team for his weight class, so he's been wrestling the best wrestlers on the other teams in his class). Yesterday, though, he won against a tough opponent and looked so satisfied at the end.


So there are some snapshots of my day. For some reason, though I was quite tired, I had trouble dropping off to sleep last night. I hope that that trend reverses tonight. Perhaps I was just too keyed up by the day?

Lots of celebrations

Here is a pictorial tour through some of the highlights of the last three days. 

Our 8 year old's piano recital.

A birthday. We made our wrestler a wrestling cake.

An Elementary Sports Day. Our two younger boys
did really well, there's no doubt we have active boys. They
made up 2/5 of their team's multi-grade 5x200m relay (yes, really),
and they won.

Elementary Sports Day continues, it contained
some running, plus other events like soccer ball
dribbling, obstacle course, skipping (US=jump rope),
standing and running long jump, soft ball throw.

Middle School (or Eighth Grade) Graduation. Which, I've
discovered, is much more a Japanese thing to do, than
an American thing. The 8th graders scrubbed up well!
But these boys wouldn't stay still for a photo.

This is just a portion of the 46 students who "graduate" from Middle
School on the 11th of June. Everyone was called up on stage with a
spiel by their home room teacher about each student (including things
the student and their friends had said about themselves). They
were applauded and given envelopes with certificates for
various achievements during Middle School (but these weren't
announced publicly).

And this game, which is called HeroScape. It was a birthday
present for our 14 year old. The boys are quite obsessive about
it and are playing it every moment they can. They even got
up at 5.30 on Thursday morning to play it before school.
The coolest thing about it (in my opinion) is that you create
your own landscape (board), and it's different every time.

Today we also had a family party for the 8th Graders. It was looong and now I'm tired (though probably not as tired as those who put many, many hours into preparing and putting it into action), and so is my clan.

It's chilling time.

Party weekend

Well, no alcohol was consumed at either party on the weekend, nonetheless I'm still recovering. Maybe I am 40 after all?

My 40th party

What I valued most about my party was the time to hang out with friends. Asking others to do all the practical things about the party left me free to just interact with people, which is how I like it. I end up in a terrible tug-of-war if I'm responsible for practical details as well as an opportunity to socialise. Usually it is the practical that gets ditched and my conscientious side feels guilty later. So Saturday night was a perfect way to celebrate my birthday.

The only practical thing I did was after almost everyone had left: I vacuumed the room, then disposed of all the left-overs in our fridge and freezer.

Here are some photos:

Here's my best Japanese friend, Tako with her youngest daughter.
I met her seven years ago, when my middle son was at
Japanese kindergarten with her daughter.

The party was casual and relaxed.

Catching up with friends was the best part. In the red is my
friend Teresa who had us all laughing with some fun games
between mains and desert. 

We had a large range of ages.

I love this photo of one of the games. So nice to see busy,
often stressed missionaries, having fun. 

Games, just like the sort we used to play at church socials,
when I was a child.

This is a nice action shot. "Go Christine!" The detail I love about it is
our colleagues to the left of Christine: Tim with his hand on his wife's
leg. Sweet!

And of course, I had to give a little speech. It was very little, so small that
I forgot to thank the friends who made the party possible.
(Like Nancy, the lady on my left, who cooked all the food!)

Our youngest son's birthday party

Comparatively, the party we held the next day for our new eight year old, was very small and easy. He ended up with three guests (out of five invited), and we basically guided them in playing, outside and inside, and fed them cake and snacks. Our son had a "ten out of ten day". My most precious memory of it was his reaction when he first saw the cake we made and decorated for him. He was speechless for a time, which is unusual for him!

A gorgeous day allowed a good hour of outside play in nearby small parks. 

Here's the cake that I baked and David and I decorated together. It is a definite family tradition, and one that David and I enjoy doing together. Thankfully we had two eyes on the situation when the candles were lit, because one of the cones caught alight! We could have had a disastrous end to the party.

24 hrs of birthday parties

Well, that's not strictly correct. We're having two birthday parties within 24 hrs. Mine and my youngest son's. His, I'll write about next week, after I see how it goes!

Leaving Australia the second time for Japan, nearly
eight years ago to relocate to Tokyo, where we knew
practically no one.

For my 40th, I decided to be very Western and have a party with friends. Japanese people don't generally celebrate adult's birthdays much and especially not with a larger group of friends. I knew that I needed to organise it myself, but I didn't want to do all the work, so I've asked friends to do it for me. We'll pay for the food, for sure, but we're not the ones working today to organise it. However, it has turned out to be a weird feeling having people do all this for me. I don't usually look for so much attention, I don't know what it is going to feel like tonight.

On the two year review questionnaire I did earlier this week there were some new questions (this is our sixth one, I think, you get to know the questions). These were about friends.

Describe the significant friendships in your life since your last review.
In what ways have you experienced support from these friends?
In what ways have you supported these friends?

In the light of my upcoming party, it was easier to think about how friends have supported me, than how I'd supported them. There is something about being a missionary that makes you more dependent on other people. It is a humbling experience. I'm a little less "needy" these days with the boys not demanding quite as much of me as they used to, but I still often feel quite "weak".

I struggled to bring to mind things that I do for my friends. But I gradually realised that I do do things for my friends, I just don't keep a tally of them for ready reckoning. And it's certainly not something that I'm used to listing out. 

But it does help me to accept their help when I think of how I'd react if the situation was reversed. If at all possible, I'd be doing the same for them if they needed my help.

The other emotion that tags along whenever we have any kind of group celebration these days, whether in Japan or in Australia, is sadness. Disappointment that there are people who are very special to us, but can't be with us.

So as I anticipate celebrating my birthday tonight with some of my friends, I'm thinking wider than those whose geographical locality make it possible for them to come to the party. It is will be a group that is symbolic of the friends that God gives me wherever we go. A thanksgiving to Him.

When we came to Japan over 12 years ago we knew no one here. Then we did it again when we relocated to Tokyo almost eight years ago. But I look around me now and see God's incredible blessings in the people He's surrounded me with. Awe inspiring.

I am thankful for the friends who will gather tonight. But I am more thankful to my Heavenly Father who is with me wherever I go and provides me with abundantly more than I ask for!

How're you going?

Overall, things are going okay during David's absence. Especially if you ask me now at 1.30pm, when none of them are here! Ask me at 8pm tonight and you will probably get a different answer.

Our younger two boys' beds.

I've been getting a good deal of work done during the day (editing, emailing, newsletter writing etc.). Today I even have an unusually domestic morning. (That is—vacuumed the whole house, washed up breakfast dishes (not usually my job), two loads of washing, cleaned toilets, changed all the towels, and did grocery shopping!)

But the evenings are tiring. These guys are hard work, even at the best of times, but worse this week because they're missing their dad. Not as physically hard when they were much younger, but more emotionally difficult.

I've had to order one son inside the house after he vowed to never come back in. Why? His brother had offended him by locking him outside for 10 seconds!

Our youngest had trouble going to sleep the night before last. He was worried about a number of things, including whether he'd see his dad on Saturday before he went off to his first ever camp away. His response to not going to sleep? Coming downstairs every 10 minutes to inform me he wasn't yet asleep.

There were fisticuffs in the lounge room last night after dinner. The two younger ones had been "happily" engaging in a bit of friendly after-dinner wrestling (not uncommon these days) and one boy felt he'd been unfairly treated, lashed out with the immediate response of being smashed in the face. Hmmm. End of wrestling.

But not the end of the feud. These two fought verbally all the way through their joint Bible-time. Tricky to manage? Yes. Eventually I separated them and brought one into my bedroom to cool off while we folded washing together.

Not long after I was done with them my eldest said, "Are you coming to do Bible time with me?" I said, "No, I'm having a shower first to calm down and then I'll come in."

In an effort to help them, David's been trying to Skype us when he's free in the evening. This hasn't been a great success. The WiFi where he is is unreliable and frustrating. The boys here don't always manage a conversation well at that time of night (anytime between 6.30 and 8).

On our minds has been our eldest son's class trip to Kyoto trip. He left early this this morning. Thankfully he had a comprehensive "to take" list and managed that almost entirely on his own. He even made his own lunch last night (with consultation).

So, this morning I dragged myself out of bed at 5.15 to say goodbye. He's gone till tomorrow night. He won't see his brothers at home again until Friday night. Friday morning they have a late start, so he'll probably still be asleep when they go to school. It is a hectic 40 hour trip and they don't get much sleep. I know, because David went on this trip four years in a row last term when he taught the 8th graders.

After farewelling him I went back to bed, but struggled to get back to sleep. So we ended up getting up a little later than usual, thankfully it's a Wednesday and school doesn't start until 9.30.

Mornings are generally better around here than evenings. Generally speaking we're almost all morning people (excepting perhaps our youngest, but his age cloaks it a little).

One success this morning was that while eating my breakfast, I coached my middle son through assembling his own lunch (including some left-over home-made pizza). He was impressed with himself. I'm happy because this guy needs to be approached laterally in order for him to help out in ways that aren't, in his mind, "his responsibility". If something stinks of "an extra job", he's out of there. Yet, if you can get him involved he's usually very satisfied with whatever he's managed to achieve.

One of the great personal-coping successes of the week has been scheduling coffee with a friend. She hardly believed me when I said that our 1 1/2 hr conversation had filled my tank for the rest of the week. Even though my kids are older, I still don't get the kind of conversation with them that I need to fill up that social part of me.

What made it an even more exciting conversation is that we were planning my 40th birthday party. My husband is a wonderful man, but his talents don't extend to organising social events like birthday parties. So, I've decided to take matters into my own hands. I've asked this friend to cater, and some other friends to do decorations and a few games. This is the first time since I was 21 that I've had more than just family at a birthday party. About time, don't you think?

Tonight I have to get the boys to karate on my own. That means driving a slowly for about half an hour through awful traffic at 5.30 (it is faster to ride, but my husband wasn't confident I'd find the place on my bike, it is in a neighbourhood that I'm not familiar with). Hopefully it should go alright. I'll be collapsing tonight, though. I hope that no one struggles to go to sleep because I think I'll be headed to bed earlier than usual.

PS Just after I posted this I looked out my glass sliding door and saw half my washing and the pole it was attached to, in the garden. And I didn't think it was very windy today...darn. Thankfully most of it doesn't need a rewash, but one of my big hangers has broken in the crash and will need to be replaced before I do any more washing.

A forgotten birthday

I forgot my birthday. Actually, it wasn't my birthday, it was this blog's birthday. Last Saturday, the 4th anniversary of this blog's beginning, slipped by unnoticed!

Last year I had a party and I invited people to answer some questions. This year? Sorry, I can't do food . . .

I had so much fun reading your comments last time, how about some different questions for you?

1. Tell us a time when you forgot someone's birthday.
2. What's the craziest birthday party you've ever attended?
3. What were you doing four years ago when this blog began?
4. Can you tell us an encouragement you've received from reading "on the edge of ordinary"?

And a question from last year:
5. A memorable post.

Or, just drop by and say, "Hi".

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

We've had the best NYE and NY Day that I can remember. Often I end up forcing myself to stay up "just because" and feel like I'm just going through the motions. Then New Year's Day is just another day on the calendar. A bit dull, I know, but it is often not the most exciting day on my calendar. Probably because I'm too tired to appreciate it.

This year was a bit different, however. We headed over to OMF Japan Headquarters to the annual NYE party. With major hand-over of leadership in the last six month, we've been enjoying some different perspectives on the way things are done. This NYE party had a distinctive European flavour. Many at the party spoke German or Swiss German better than English. When we split up into preferred language groups for a reflective activity, we had German, English, and German.

Despite the language barriers (most spoke some English, though several spoke only Japanese or German), we managed to have an enjoyable, yet meaningful evening that didn't drag. We had time for food, fun, reflection, worship, sharing, and prayer. We watched "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" for the last two hours, stopping just towards the end to "pray the New Year in".

The reflective activity involved drawing things that stood out about 2012 and then talking in a small group about it. Though we did it separately, our whole family included the motorhome trip in our remembering. That trip was memorable, just as we imagined it would be!

I didn't get to sleep till about 2pm. I had trouble winding down at the end (this person who rarely makes it to midnight in an upright position and never did an all-nighter as a student).

Our first meal in 2013 was together with other missionaries who'd stayed the night at the Guest Home at JHQ. It gave the evening before a lovely conclusion, rather than everyone drifting off in their own direction.

Then, late in the morning (but not long after breakfast), we headed off for a very Japanese experience. A super-sento (see photos here)—a traditional Japanese bath, but much larger (here's a nice explanation of a Japanese public bath), with 38 different pools.

Inside the "shopping" area. Not a great

photo, but it was done up to look "old-world",

Japanese style.

I enjoyed being able to be with my husband (not so much the boys). This is unusual for a Japanese bath, usually sexes are segregated, and thankfully so. At this facility, however, there is mixed outside swimsuit area. Kind-of a combination between swimming pool and a Japanese bath. It looked like a rock garden, with shallow pools, nothing deep that you would swim in.

It was a relief to find other families there with kids who couldn't sit still, just like ours. These are places where Japanese go to relax, to have a mini holiday. The idea of our boys sitting quietly and relaxing is laughable, and we tend to feel we're causing problems for others when we go, so it isn't necessarily a relaxing experience for us.

Another reason we don't go often to Japanese baths is because David gets a bit of a raw deal. He has to have all the boys in the men's locker rooms. I get the easy deal! I get a relaxing bath, he gets the stress of active boys disturbing the peace of a Japanese onsen.

Relaxing, that's what it's all about.
Massage chairs, real masseurs,
relaxation room (that looked
like a huge first-class section
of an aeroplane with lying down seats,
blankets, and individual screens, etc.

But back to the outside baths. Yes, we were sitting naked or nearly naked outside in sub 10 degree temperatures! The water was generally around 40 degrees C and very pleasant, but standing up to move to another bath (and there were 38 throughout the entire complex) was a chilling experience. Still, it was quite something to sit and gaze up at the blue sky and enjoy total warmth in the middle of winter.

The whole experience was more than just a bath, though. When you entered, they gave you "room clothes" a simple kimono with 3/4 pants plus a locker key and two towels. You take your things to the locker and change into the "room clothes". The locker key had a bar code on it that allows you to purchase anything without money (a bit scary when you realise the boys had bar codes too). When you left they read the bar codes and charged us for our expenses.

So, when we were hungry, we went into the locker rooms and changed into our room clothes and met in the main shopping area and chose some food. After sufficient sustenance, we headed back to the outdoor mixed bathing area.

Collagen-infused bath.

Before we left from the treck back across town to our house we all had a proper bath in the segregated section (which also had many different baths, inside as well as outside).

I tried out a pink bath and asked the lady next to me what karaagen was (that was the label on the bath), she had trouble explaining. Later learned it is how they spell "Collagen"! She must have thought I was a bit stupid. But then, if someone asked me to explain what collagen was, I think I might have trouble explaining too.

We came away feeling pretty relaxed, despite the boys. Although they were a little more relaxed too, probably due to the lack of sleep the night before plus lots of warm water bathing. A lethal combination, but we managed to drive home without the driver falling asleep.

This explanation may be a bit confusing to you. It is something that needs to be experienced to truly understand. Usually I enjoy a Japanese bath these days (it took me a few years to get there), but I'm also very aware that my fluorescent white skin is all the more exposed when I'm without clothes, my different-ness is even more pronounced. Some people don't find that a bother, but I'd rather blend in with the crowd and be quietly different rather than in-your-face different. I also find it hard to totally relax while totally naked with others! I therefore enjoyed the mixed bathing section of this onsen. It was easier to relax when I was with my husband and decently covered up.

Can you spy Mt Fuji in the distance?

On the way home we were treated to a cityscape sunset. It was beautiful with the sun setting behind Mt Fuji and the new Sky Tree. Not as breathtaking as an outback sunset, but still enjoyable. As we were on an expressway, the only photos I got were from a speeding vehicle, still, they aren't bad.

Altogether it was a lovely 28 hours. A thoroughly enjoyable way to bring in the New Year.

One of the pieces of advice an American missionary to Australia gave us back in 2000 when we were preparing to leave for Japan has stuck with us: make sure you find things to enjoy that you wouldn't be able to do if you were in Australia. It is one way to counter homesickness. It's been good advice, and the last couple of days were good examples of how well it works.

Culminating events

Today was a crowded day on the calendar. You know, one of those days that everything happens on the same day. But thankfully it all happened in the same place and nothing clashed.

Yes, we're in the middle of what CAJ calls "Culminating Events" on their calendar. I guess they mean "End of Year events", but they can't really say "end of year" because it isn't, it is just the end of the calendar year, not the school year.

Ordinarily today I would have attended a prayer meeting at school at 8.30 for an hour and a Bible study at an apartment next to the school at 1.00. As well as that I attended a Christmas party for 4th grade from 10.45 till 12 and one for 2nd grade from 2.30 till 3.30. Since I was at school and our lunchtimes coincided, I also ate lunch with my husband!

I've surprised myself by not being stressed out at the end of it all. In fact, I haven't got the headache that I've had on the evenings of less busy days this week.

4th Grade Party

The worst of it was the 4th grade party. They were so hyped. And the class seems to be full of "screamers". Who knew that 4th graders could be so loud for so long.

I ran a couple of games and they enjoyed them both. The first was Bingo, where they had to find others who could "sign off" on the various tasks or experiences on the sheet. We had a Bingo within two minutes of starting, but we couldn't get them to stop playing the game. It went on for quite a while.

The second game was new to everyone, but an oldie for me. I wonder if this is just an Australian thing?

The Chocolate Game: You sit people in a circle with a bar of chocolate in the middle. Give them two dice. Each person takes a turn throwing the dice and if they get a double, they get to go and eat some chocolate. The hitch is that to eat chocolate, they have to put some clothes on (we had some crazy hats, shirts, and socks), then they have to cut a square of chocolate off with a knife before they can eat it.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera out and take a photo. It was very intense and again, they were reluctant to stop! We didn't let them get through the whole bar of chocolate, but stopped partway and broke up the rest of the bar to include with the party lunch that some other mums had prepared.

The biggest hoot was that the teachers had made up JibJab cards (see another example of one of their cards here) with all the kid's faces (and one with the teacher's faces). The kids screamed. It was funny to watch, but painful on the ears.

Thankfully we fed them then, and they were all given a plate with a selection of food on it, so they didn't have to jump up and down for food. Everything calmed down then. At that point I heard that they'd had no outside break since 8.30 this morning. So we cut the party a bit short and sent them out to play for 30 minutes—for the sanity of the teachers teaching them in the afternoon!

2nd Grade Party

This was a complete opposite of the morning's party. Their teacher made the choice to make the party about someone else: orphans in an orphanage in the Philippines, where the class sponsors a child. The children brought not-so-expensive gifts, wrapped them, and wrote cards. That was the party entertainment. I thought it was brilliant!

They then had some light party food and it was home time. Much easier on the ears and the nerves!

Tomorrow's culminating events

Tomorrow is the last day before Christmas-New Year holidays. We get a full three weeks this year. Yay! It is our biggest holiday apart from the summer marathon. We're looking forward to staying in bed longer on these cold mornings. And not being slaves to the clock.

Tomorrow isn't as full as today. The usual (weekly) 8.30 prayer meeting, and the Elementary Christmas Concert at 2pm. Then at 4pm is the annual Staff Christmas party (adults only). After that is a Jazz Concert at school, lead by a famous Japanese drummer. I'm looking forward to going, but I'm not sure we'll manage to drag the rest of the family too.

Once that is over, we're free from school.

In a way, it is better than Australia, because we don't have End of Year stuff included in all of this, but in a way it is worse than Australia, because by this time of the year we're all tired. In Australia the kids aren't doing important work because school is winding up. But here they've still be working on spelling, Bible memory, maths worksheets etc. this week. And it's been hard to get them to concentrate with all the anticipation building inside them.

But for now, I need to get upstairs and get these tired, excited, strung-out, and wound-up kids to bed!

Not invited to the party anymore

How would a typical Australian kid feel about this?

This week I heard about a birthday party for one of our youngest's classmates. He gave me some of the details (there was no formal invitation), but then he casually added,

 "I might not be invited anymore, because there are too many kids coming."

So I emailed the boy's parents, who I know. The father confirmed the next morning that indeed they did have too many children to cope with in their small apartment, and would it be okay if they invited our son over on another date?


I was a little surprised, but having been in this situation before myself, understood perfectly.

So I told the boys about it at breakfast. None of them showed any sign of surprise. They all know how difficult it is to fit a lot of people into our house (which is large by Japanese standards).  Our youngest, whose "feelings" have allegedly been hurt often in recent times (this is one of his favourite phrases at present), showed no sign of hurt.

We clearly don't have 100% Aussie kids here. I'm doubting that it would have been such a non-issue in an Australian household. Am I right?

Sleepover party and an anniversary

Today we're having a bit of a chilled-out day.

Last night we held a party for my new 10 y.o. It is the first non-family party he's ever had. There's a variety of reasons for that, one being that he's never asked for a party and so, typically, it's slipped under the radar and never happened. There are lots of things like that in a multiple-child family. I notice this particularly as I interact with smaller families. Particularly families with only one child.

It also happens to be the first every party-sleepover that we've ever hosted as a family. Our children's personalities have a bit to do with that, as do our personalities. Not to mention that with three fairly highly strung boys, our life runs on a thin wire anyway. It doesn't take a lot to push the stress over the top.

Playing Heroica, a Lego game.

Possibly another reason is that as children we had almost no experience of party-sleepovers ourselves. I haven't checked with my husband on this, but I suspect he never had one, nor went to one. I never had one and the only sleepover party I did attend ended badly. This is a story in itself.

I'm not sure how many preteen girls were at the party, but considering we were at a small school, it was probably all the girls in our year level: between a dozen and 15. Brave parents! We did all the usual things, food, stories, we may have even watched a movie (though not guaranteed, that may have been before videos were standard equipment in homes). And we were late to bed.

When we woke up early in the morning there was a rush to use the toilet and I ended up in a line. I leaned up against the door frame and mistakenly put my hand in the hinge-space. My friend shut the door on my fingers and, in her semi-comatose state, couldn't figure out why it wouldn't shut. I remember her saying, "I can't shut the door. I can't shut the door." While repeatedly trying to do so. In the moment I couldn't spit out, "My fingers are there." until significant damage had been done.

I lost both those fingernails, painfully, over the following weeks. Man that hurt!

I can't remember ever being invited to another sleep-over. I don't know if they just weren't in fashion, or I earned a reputation?

In any case. Our excursion into sleep-over parties last night went well. We kept it low key and small (only two guests). We were helped by a present that our son received for his birthday, a Lego game called Heroica. My boys are enthralled by Lego and games that include a fantasy story, weapons, and where you create your own board. This game has all of that. Our son's guests were equally enthralled. I think the other thing that appeals in these sorts of games with this general age group is the huge number of rules. I struggle to understand it all, but they love it.

Dinner table set for seven.

End result: we provided very little entertainment. Mostly just supervision.

After a simple dinner (hot dogs and veggies) we ate a calculator cake. Then showers followed by settling into a movie (Garfield 2). The movie didn't end until nearly 10 o'clock. I was wilting. Thankfully my husband has more stamina and patience and he waited another hour downstairs while the boys gradually settled. Though they tell me that they didn't go to sleep until after midnight. By the time I came down for breakfast at 7.15, they were already well into more rounds of Heroica.

Our grand team effort Calculator Cake.
The numbers melted in the heat!

The boys both left mid-morning and now we're left with a holiday-day to fill in, with, guess what? More Heroica!

Meanwhile, my husband slaves away at Professional Development (yes, that's why the boys are home on a Thursday), learning how to teach EAL students. This is the new ESL. It stands for English as an Additional Language. And certainly is a more accurate label for many of the kids at CAJ. The two guests last night speak at least one other language. One has a Singaporean dad and Japanese mum. The other has a Japanese dad and American mom.

15 years ago today we made vows we've never regretted.

But for now, I'd better go and prepare some lunch. Oh, and remember to wrap my wedding anniversary present for my beloved. Today marks 15 years since we tied the knot! Wow, a lot has changed since that day!

Crazy Day

Today is a crazy day, last day of school. Elementary parties and so on until lunch time dismissal. Then I'm heading off to someone's apartment for a bring and share lunch with the two younger boys. Eldest is going with mates to a friend's birthday party. Hopefully we'll all get back together for dinner at 5.30, then off to CAJ's senior graduation, which is a really big deal in the school calendar. Also two of our mission's kids (I should say young men: they are miles taller than I) are graduating. The two younger ones are going to someone's apartment to watch Japan play Yemen in soccer and I guess we'll all get back together again around bed time.

I might get back here today, I might not. Hopefully I can post some photos later on in the weekend.

BANG and school is over.Then it is a 77 day wait until I can send them all off again. Good thing we have a couple of things planned to pass the days . . .

It's a Birthday Party and you're invited

Today is the third birthday of this blog. I've been pondering how you have a birthday party for a blog. But to have a party, you need people, right? So, how about you join in the party with some comments today?


I'd love to know these things:


1. When you first started reading this blog.
2. A memorable post.
3. Why do you keep coming back?
4. One new thing you've learned by hanging out here.
5. Has it changed your image of what the life of a missionary is like? How?


But if you don't feel like answering any of those, just drop by and say hi!

Planning an Australia Day party

I'm excited about an Australia Day party I'm planning for the 27th (a day late, but we don't get a public holiday for the Thursday). We haven't done this for a long time, but figured it was a good excuse to get some folk together.  It's turned out to be a good excuse for getting to know some Aussies who are around, but, well, we don't know them all that well.


So we have one Aussie family from school (but only Dad and two teenage daughters can come, plus an Australian friend of theirs who's passing through town), and one Aussie-Japanese family from church (Australian dad, Japanese mum and two pre-school aged kids). We have one American family (who our kids know pretty well) as ring-ins. Plus our family. 


The Americans are feeling a little nervous, can you believe it? They thought they might need some help, some phrases or something to help them fit in. We never did get around to completing that conversation (we were watching our kids wrestle at an interschool meet — more about that tomorrow). But I wonder what I should tell them? Any (tasteful) ideas?


Food-wise I'm planning an "indoor" BBQ. All the trappings of a barbie, but without the outside grill (and with almost no backyard and close to zero temperatures at night, that's probably wise). I still have to lay my hands on some beetroot. And I'm planning to make a pavlova for dessert. Yummmmm.


Entertainment-wise, I'd love to watch The Castle, but don't think it is all that suitable for all these kids we'll have here (should figure out how to have an adult-only movie night some time...). So instead I'm thinking of pulling out all those Australian/Australian themed games/ puzzles we have. We have at least two jigsaw puzzles (Opera House and a map of Australia). We also have Australian Monopoly and Squatter. 


What do you think? About seven adults and ten kids, ranging in age from two to sixteen. What would you do in a small house for a Friday night Australia Day party?

A wet day in which I baked, sewed and answered the phone

Today was most suitable to a "home day". Cold and miserable outside, being inside was perfect. 

I started the day with a long list of things that needed to be done (by us both). Unfortunately last night I developed an achy knee. No idea why, but it was achy enough to make it difficult to go to sleep last night. And achy enough to make the vacuuming and cleaning part of my list fairly unattractive. (Mind you it doesn't take much of an excuse for me to forgo cleaning!) But it did make me a little regretful that when I'd had a healthy body last week I spent a lot of time sitting down (but I was working hard, I did a lot of editing and other computer work this week). Ironic that now I'd planned to do some cleaning, my knee was playing up.

After a late breakfast my husband set off for the hardware store for some much needed bits and pieces (including a gas canister for our up-coming camping trip) and I sat down to finish off one of the track pants (US=sweatpants, nothing at all to do with being required at school, by the way). All I had to do was hem the pants and tidy up the waist-hem. It took me a long time, however, because I kept getting phone calls. 

My eldest son had gone to a birthday party. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Particularly as he could get himself there independently on the train. But there there was a problem, in fact there turned out to be a few problems. They were to all meet at one station. But 45 minutes after the appointed time, one boy hadn't arrived. Obviously these boys aren't all that "connected" because though many of them had mobile phones (US=cell phone), no one seemed to have this boy's number! I didn't either, but I did have his mum's number, I guess that I why I got the call about their dilemma. 

Well then it got really complicated. Especially as our son often didn't answer his phone when we called him. Not sure why, maybe because the background noise covered up the phone sound? Maybe he was having such a good time with his friends that he didn't hear. Anyway, it turned out that the other boy had forgotten about the party (so glad that happens to other people). It took a while to hook the boys up, though! 

Then I got another phone call about an hour later. The boy they'd been waiting for had arrived at the station and there was no one there. He'd rung his mum (who was working at the church, they are missionaries) who'd run her other son at home who'd rung me, at least I think that is how it went! It turns out the guys had gone to the house of the birthday boy to play Twister and had been so embroiled in a 45 minute round of Twister that no one had answered their phones. Oh dear. 

Our son isn't home yet (4.33pm), and I haven't heard from him. I hope they all had a good time in the end (it was supposed to be an outdoor party at an amusement park, but given the weather they had to find other things to do).

I did eventually get the pants sewn. Here my youngest son modelling them. This is a flattering view. Less flattering is with the legs separated, but I won't show you that. He's happy with it, especially with the pockets!

From the left, clockwise. Melting Moments, Cherry Oat Slice and Jam Drops with Monster Eye Biscuits.

After lunch I took painkillers, and then baked. Our house was desperately in need of some morning and afternoon tea snacks. I love it when the cupboard is full like this:

But I guess now I should get back to my list of things to do. I have a choice of packing some things for our camping trip or doing some more sewing on the second pair of pants.