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).
