Weechan's Lemon Pie

Weechan caught the festive baking bug the other day and decided she wanted to make a lemon meringue pie like Mummy's with the leftover pastry. Wasn't bad either!

WeechanはMummyみたいにパイが作りたいと言ったので、残りの生地で作ってみることにした。結構おいしかったよ！

Christmas Roses

Boxing Day 26日

Having Christmas at my own house is always a bit of a bittersweet joy.
I want for Mairi's sake to have our own family traditions. They don't have to be the same as my childhood memories ("Has he been yet?"), although trying to emulate my no doubt contorted memories of Christmases past makes me feel a little less homesick at this time of year; I just want her to have a "we always did this at Christmas (or New Year or whatever)" to contribute to conversations when she is grown.

I truly believe that you have to make special occasions special. It is not intrinsic, and it's always worth the effort. I also basically love having people over, to be able to relax and enjoy good company a few wines in your own home without worrying about when and how to go home, and what Weechan is doing, is a blessing.

Of course it also means a certain amount of slaving over hot stoves and work on Christmas Day itself, and entails no doubt that part of M's "we always do BLANK at Christmas" will be Mother having a rant about getting the place cleaned up for people coming! So while there is great satisfaction once the dinner is on the table and everyone has had a nice day, I always find that I can't really be bothered to eat and enjoy the actual feast myself by the time I finally sit down to it.

So Boxing Day is always when I really enjoy the food of Christmas Dinner, and so it was this year too. As luck would have it, I ordered the same size of turkey I normally do when I have 8-10 mouths to feed, plus a quarter of a ham, even though I only had 6 adult guests, and two of them were vegetarians! So the leftovers were plentiful and of high quality, and enjoyed by the Ikegami girls for lunch next day with gusto! (It's December 28th as I finally get around to blogging, and so far we've had turkey fried rice, and a turkey and ham cream pie and there's still scope for further variations!)

Christmas has been the last project on a long "to do list", which it seems I started to check off before Halloween, so Boxing day was the first morning in a long time that I woke up with nothing next on the list that I had to plan for, and I decided that the dishes and cleaning up could wait: that this would be an Ikegami girls day. Weechan has always played well and contentedly by herself, for which I am grateful, but the guilt has been setting in lately, as I hear myself saying "I'll do it with you later when I finish this" once too often, and then later never comes.... Today I'd go with her flow and do my stuff later, I decided.

So, our day involved: making one of the great ELC make your own doll kits she got for Christmas - see Fairy Doll above. Going to the park. Watching "High School Musical 2" followed by much dancing around and singing of songs from said masterpiece. Generally slobbing around on the couch.

Best day I've had in a while. Thanks Mairi!

Happy Excess! メリー クリスマス

真夜中に窓のがたがたしている音で目が覚めた。家には煙突がないから、もしかして。。。と思ったけど、確認するのは怖すぎたから、お母さんたちのところに行って、安心して寝た。でも朝リビングにおりてきたら、クッキーと牛乳、人参も消えていたから、やぱりサンタさんだたよね！


I woke up in the middle of the night t the sound of the window banging. We have no chimney, so I had my suspicions, but I was too scared to go and look so went in beside Mummy and Daddy instead. But when I came down to the living room in the morning.... the biscuit and the milk were gone, and the best part of the carrot too! It must have been him!

そして寝る前になかったこのプレゼントもおいてあったよ！

And there were these presents that weren't there the night before too!


サンタから頼んだものももらえたし、いつも通り、スコットランドの友達や親戚からもらったものもすごかった。皆、ありがとう！

Of course Santa brought me what I asked for too, but as usual I was spoiled rotten by all my family and friends in Scotland and here too. Thank you very much everyone!

お父さんもすごいものもらった。Mummyは自分のMacBookがあったら、彼女のを返してくれるかな、と思ったらしい。これから二人で同じソファでSKYPEで会話をしているだろうな。。。

Daddy got spoiled too! Mummy thought if he had his own MacBook he might let her use her own sometimes. Then they can sit and skype each other from opposite ends of the same sofa if they really need to have a conversation...

Mummyのベストプレゼントは私のとお揃えのこのチョコ盛り合わせだった。

Mummy was most excited by her selection box, the first one in years, after much hinting!

全部をあけていたら、部屋はすごい状態になってしまった。

The room was a bombsite after we'd done!

My bunk beds for Usa-chan!

うさちゃんの２段ベッド。

Then we had friends over for Christmas dinner. Nia was the most photogenic.

クリスマスディナーに着てくれた友達の中で、一番可愛かったのはニアちゃん！

We all had a great time though, and too much food.

皆で食べ過ぎて、楽しすぎた！

Rita Hayworth, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie get ready to do bubbles outside.

そとでシャボン玉をするのにふさわしいカッコ！

All Systems Go! 準備完了！

Advent Calendar all opened and decorated....
アドベントカレンダーは完成したし。。。

Presents under the tree....
プレゼントをツリーの下に準備したし。。。

サンタさんのクッキーと牛乳、とトナカイさんの人参を用意した。あと寝るだけだね！
The cookies, milk and the carrot for the reindeer are in place. All systems go!

Grumpy Neighbour 隣さん

Kodo

Dr Y got me tickets for Kodo for my birthday, so we went off to see them December 11th! What can I say? Spellbinding! I really must get up to Sado for the Earth Celebration one of these years. Thanks hubby-san. Despite all my moans I do appreciate it!!!

ダーリングが誕生日に鼓童の公演のチケットをくれたから、１２月１３日に見に行ってきた。なんと言ったらいいでしょうか？　感動！！すばらしい！いつか佐渡島に行きたいな！ありがとう、DrY！

For those of you who don't know the greatness of Japanese taiko drumming, here is someone's YouTube of Kodo's 2007 tour somewhere abroad to gve you an idea. And this doesn't even begin to capture the power of the real thing, so PLEASE go if they ever come to a place near you.



鼓童のすばらしさが分からない人がいたら、この（私が知らない）人が作ったYouTubeビデオで見てみてください。でもライブで見るのと比べるものにならないから、近くにきたら、是非見てください！

Party! パーティー！

A bi-cultural Christmas party last Sunday! East met West in a big way, alcoholically speaking as well as literally. Just did a head count on my fingers and I think we had 19 kids and 20 adults in my small house, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting someone at that. No wonder I haven't seen any of my neighbours since. They've probably all moved to escape the bedlam!

おかげさまで、先週のクリスマスパーティーは無事に終わりました。シャンパンも日本酒もたくさん飲まれたし、本当に国際的なパーティーになりました。今頭の中で数えてみたら、この小さい家に大人２０人と子供１９人が集まりましたよ！近所の皆さんにご迷惑をかけてすみませんでした、ってかんじですね。

Thanks to everyone who came, especially JJ for bringing the most giant pass the parcel parcel ever, much to the delight of the kids. What a great idea!
着てくれた皆さん、ありがとうございます。おかげさまで、すてきなクリスマス思いでができました。特に世界一大きいプレゼント回しゲームを持ってきてくれたJJさんにありがとう！子供たちが皆とても喜んだ！

This year's most annoying Christmas gift so far prize goes to the Suzuki Family for this 4ft inflatable Santa! Thanks very much (you know I actually love it!), I hope my gift for Y gives you as much pleasure!!!!

今年の「Mummyをイライラさせるプレゼント賞」は鈴木Familyのこの1.5mのサンタさんが受賞しました。本当のことを言うと結構大好きね！Yくんのプレゼントで逆しゅうができたかな？

The present which has evoked the purest joy so far has to be the box of sausage rolls from British bakery Baps and Buns sent by the Watson/Wells family. This is by far Mairi's favourite food of choice whenever we go to Scotland, so her eyes were twinkling from the minute we opened the box.



純粋の喜びを呼び出したプレゼントはWells/Watson家のイギリスベカリーから送ってもらったソーセージパイでした。スコットランドに行く時の茉利の一番大好きな食べ物に違いないから、箱を開けた瞬間から目が光っていた！

Alice the Musical

I took to the stage for my musical debut last Thursday, in our school's production of "Alice the Musical". Me and my friends were so excited to take part. We've been practising since September.

先週の木曜日は私のミュージカルの初舞台でした。学校のクリスマス発表会の「不思議の国のアリス」のミュージカル版「アリス　ザ　ミュージカル」に参加が出来て、友達ととてもうれしかった。９月から練習していた。

My friend K was Alice, and she was great!
友達のKはアリスの役だった。すばらしかった！

And we in the EC class got to be flowers and insects in the garden!
そして私のECクラスはお花と虫になった。

Lots of my other friends did a great job too.
たくさんの友達が出て、皆頑張った。



It was a great Festive Eve for me. And I was especially glad that my Ba-chan was able to come and watch the show!
楽しい「フェスティブ　イブ」でした。特におばあちゃんが見に来てくれたからね。

Let the Baking Commence

Tis the season.... and all that jazz. This means that in amongst the other seasonal mayhem, that I have to start baking. No-one forces me to do it; while I'm sure the recipients are quite happy to get my wares (or they are excellent liars! for which I'm grateful), but they could just as happily do without, and I'm quite sure my family suffers the stress of my excess activity (sorry), but it just seems to be one of these things I have to do for it to be Christmas. With M's Festive Eve debut in "Alice the Musical" on Thursday, and a party at home on Sunday, there was nothing else for it but to get my rolling pin out and get going.