After the craziness of Christmas we look forward to the slow pace of New Year’s here in Japan. It’s a lovely peaceful celebration for us – just our family of four and lots of food.
As usual I left everything to the last minute. By the time I made it to the store to get some flowers they had sold out of everything. Time to improvise! My garden is in a sorry state after a very hot and dry summer but I managed to find a few pretty camellia, some winter berries and a few sprigs of pine. My vases, the table runner and the wreath were all grabbed late on New Year’s Eve from the dollar shop. I think it turned out just fine. My family of boys really don’t expect perfection.
We’ll eat this food for breakfast then depending on the weather we’ll take a stroll down to our local shrine to pray for good health and prosperity. After that we’ll take the kids to the beach and hope for a breeze to fly their kites – a very old traditional New Year’s day past-time in Japan. It will be a very relaxing day.
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! (Japanese: Happy New Year everyone).
Happy New Year!
I’m awfully jealous that those gorgeous camellia’s came out of your garden mid-winter.
Here’s to a wonderful 2012!
what a lovely, happy celebration to welcome the new year. i’m aso craving those camellias, they are so fantastic and i can’t grow a thing! happy 2012’ing 🙂
So fun! Happy New Year and thanks for sharing Jacqui
My time living in Japan was so much fun, and I have some of the best memories from my two new years’ spent there. One of the most fun seasons in Japan, in my opinion. I loved spending time with my home stay family, my church family, and friends eating お節料理 and playing games.
あけましておめでとう！