Hi, Everyone!
Christmas Day is over, and everything I was helping with has been fun!
On Tuesday, Grandma and Grandpa got the new shades for their bedroom windows. They can pull down from the top or up from the bottom, and I like them a lot! I got to show Grandma how they work. On Wednesday, Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara came. Grandpa had already put up the Christmas tree, so they started right away to put the lights on it. After the lights were on, Grandma and I started putting on the ornaments. There are a lot of them, and it took us all day Thursday to finish! I found a place on the tree for a lace ornament I helped Grandma buy in Bamberg, Germany last year. Then I hung the new ornament from the Shichi-go-san shrine in Japan. The yellow fringe reminds me of the arrows the priests gave Bill-kun and Karin-chan.
After that, I said hello to the new bear and rabbit. One of Grandma’s friends in Thailand got those for Bill-kun and Karin-chan, but we forgot to take them to Japan when we went. Then Grandma forgot to put them in the package of presents we mailed to Bill-kun and Karin-chan after we got back. So bear-san and rabbit-san are spending this Christmas on Grandma and Grandpa’s tree, and we’ll take them to Bill-kun and Karin-chan before next Christmas.
While Grandpa was putting up the Christmas tree on Wednesday morning, Grandma was out shopping for Aunt Kara’s Christmas present. I helped with the wrapping: we made a “twelve days of Christmas” present, so there were twelve separate packages to put together into one big bundle!
On Friday, Grandma and Grandpa had their stollen party. I was a good helper, welcoming the guests and telling them what kinds of soup we were serving. There are lots of Grandma and Grandpa’s friends who are now my friends, too! Moose-san came and helped me arrange the stollen table. This year, some of Uncle Steven’s friends came to the party and brought their children, so we got out some Legos for them to play with. We didn’t have the assembly instructions for all the Lego sets anymore, but Uncle Steven found them on-line.
Moose-san forgot to go home with Joe-san and Nancy-san after the stollen party, so we got to have a sleepover! And on Christmas eve, Aunt Kara showed me a very special Christmas card. It’s from Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara’s baby, who isn’t even born yet! Grandma looked at it and said Bill-kun and Karin-chan’s cousin has a cute nose. I think grandmas must be better than little lions at seeing that sort of thing.
The church service on Christmas eve was after my bedtime, but Grandma took me to the church service on Christmas morning. That service only happens on years when Christmas falls on Sunday, and everybody can come in casual clothes. Grandma’s choir wore robes, but they weren’t choir robes, they were bathrobes! After the service, I made friends with the poinsettia plants and the nativity scene on the altar. Now that I’ve heard the real Christmas story, I know who all the figures are.
When Grandma and I got home from church, Aunt Kara’s mother was there. We all ate Grandma’s fresh-baked croissants for brunch. Yum! And Grandpa told me my picture was in the paper! It really was! One of the pictures the news photographer took at Tuba Christmas was printed across the top of the paper, and I’m right in the middle of it. I’m sure that’s me sitting on Grandma’s lap, because there weren’t any other little lions there!
Then we opened our Christmas presents. Uncle Steven hands out everybody’s presents from under the Christmas tree. It was fun to watch Aunt Kara open all twelve of her packages, and she even sang the Twelve Days of Christmas song every time she opened one. It’s been a very merry Christmas, and I hope everybody else had a happy one, too!
Grandma says it’s time to put my Santa hat away for now but we still have some holiday entertaining to do. And I’m excited about lots of things that are going to happen in the New Year!
Love,
Lion-san