Well, it's the eve of the 25th. It was a pretty nice, but not traditional Christmas holidays. No presents to unwrap but that's okay.
We spent the morning house cleaning and it ended up being our Oo-souji (big house cleaning at the end of the year) and then we had a pot-luck open house from 1-10 pm.
We had invited anyone we knew that was staying in town for the holidays and hadn't found something to do Christmas Day. Tokyo can be lonely at Christmas, especially if one has just moved here. The whole point of it was to have a no stress, no obligation day. People could show up when the wanted. No being on time or late for dinner. Just hanging out with people and relaxing and having good snacks/food/alcohol.
We had about 6 people come over. We didn't have much in the way of traditional fare. I made a veggie chilli and we had tortilla, salsa, baked potatoes, variety of cheeses and crackers. Red wine, plum wine, white wine, coffee and liquer, beer. Cake, brownies, shortbread and chocolates. Also papaya slices wrapped in parma ham.
One interesting thing was that the Japan National Womens' Figure Skating Championship was on tv so we watched that a bit and it reminded me a lot of being home in Canada. We often watched figure skating on TV during the holidays and would chat, watch the skaters, chat more...
Great conversation and lots of fun. Very nice group of people.
The apartment looks great. It's cleaner than it's been for a while and the carpet was even rolled out so guests wouldn;t have to sit directly on the hardwood. I finally got curtains but they didn't make it on time. Still waiting for delivery, but we opened the curtains, enjoyed the window space and didn't worry about it not matching.
Pics to follow later (I hope).
I hope everyone has a great holiday.
Best wishes for the New Year!