I'm being really lazy & lumping the 2 major festive moments of the year together. When I think about it now, it's quite sad that Xmas & New Year's are so close together that they're both gone by the time you realised it. Nothing big to look forward to until a year later. It's a good thing that at least I usually still get to celebrate Chinese New Year, but I actually haven't celebrated it in 2 years since I don't go home for CNY. It's not convenient for me to take leave at that time & even if I do, I can't spend a long time at home. :( I do miss spending these special occasions with my family & friends back home.
I celebrated an early Xmas (Xmas was actually spent in Hawaii) with my gaijin (foreigner) friends & New Year's with Japanese friends from salsa. Very apt, isn't it, as Xmas is only a borrowed Western custom & it's not even a public holiday in Japan. Although, the fabulous party was only feasible all due to my friends' Japanese colleague who invited us to her place for a potluck. None of us has such a big place like hers. We're just poor gaijins with a 1 room apartment..hah. I wish we can do it again this year, but sadly my good friends are going to leave this year once their contract ends in Aug. I can't even bear to think about it.
For New Year's this year, we had a nabe party at E-chan's relatively new house on the 2nd. It was exactly a year ago when we had a nabe party at Natsu-kun's apartment. The crabs were actually air-flown from Hokkaido & E-chan only bought it for a 1000 yen each when she was there! Well, I actually got to spend New Year's with family this time because my sis was at the nabe party too. She's just joined JAL as a stewardess & is currently on training in Japan until Feb.
