Sunday, December 30, 2007

Christmas 2007

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Our Christmas was very merry, in fact one of the best in years. I guess the reason I enjoyed it so much was that we cooked roast beef with the traditional selection of trimmings. I haven't had a roast dinner in a year and a half so I really enjoyed it. The best part of the roast dinner was the gravy and Yorkshire puddings - excellent! Christmas in Japan still feels a bit odd as most people go to work and Clara spent the day at school. I was impressed with her patience as she had to wait until 6pm before she could open her presents. I remember always waking up at around 6am and having to drag my parents out of bed so my brother and I could sate our greed.

We all received a goodly amount of presents (especially Clara) and I was particularly chuffed to receive an Aberdeen Football Club home shirt. The shirt should hopefully encourage me to go to the gym or run a bit more frequently.

As said previously, we opened the presents at around 6pm. Because of the time difference, my parents and grandmother in Scotland were able to watch the whole process on Skype. It almost seemed like they were here in Tokyo. It was also nice to see my grandmother online as she is usually hidden away in the old folks home in Staffin. These days she is only wheeled out for special occasions. She seemed to appreciate the events and I was sure that I even caught a brief smile across her face.That's Christmas now covered. The New Year celebrations will be online in a day of two.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

7th Birthday Party

Yes folks, it's true! Clara turned 7 years old on the 22nd December. To celebrate, we held a small birthday party for her with family and a few friends in attendance.

The big present of the day came from her Japanese grandparents. They gave Clara a Nintendo DS whilst her uncle gave her Tamagotchi software. It looks like I'm going to get a lot more peace and quiet over the next few weeks. I'm trying not to get too interested in her new toy as I can see myself becoming addicted as well. I am the king of procrastination, so the DS seems right up my street.

Another present that proved popular was Twister, the all time party favourite. The kids seemed to enjoy it and the adults had the extra challenge of not breaking any of the children's limbs. The adults were also faced with the considerable challenge of drinking all the alcohol in the house. We got through 6 bottles of wine and about 20 cans of beers.A very enjoyable evening and we all still had Christmas to look forward to!!

P.S. Sorry but blogger seems to be experiencing a few problems at the moment and it is proving difficult to post some photos and links. Hopefully the gremlins will be ironed out soon....