Christmas Day

Posted on 2005/12/26 11:21:47 (December 2005).

[Sunday 25th December]
It's hard to think of a good analogy for how Christmas Day went. The best I can manage is a very popular guest at a party, who was in fact your main reason for going there in the first place, but you could only manage to talk to in short bursts.

So in other words it felt like Christmas in spots, but was pretty drab in all the gaps inbetween.

Opening presents at the start of the day was really nice - it was just me and Chie in our new flat for that bit. I've got a rather nice new watch which I'm very pleased with. Then later on Chie went out to do some shopping (despite much protesting from me about the moral correctness of shopping on Christmas day!) so I spent a spell lolling about the flat by myself. I was required to join her in the shopping expedition around 3 in the afternoon, again, despite strong protests to the contrary.

We went to the foreign food shop (seijo ishi) in Shinjuku station to buy some things to make Christmas dinner, but in the end I decided I just didn't have the right ingredients and cooking apparatus to have a decent stab - although our microwave has a sort of oven function, the logistics just seemed overwhelming.

So in the end, as I believe I had predicted some days earlier, we ordered in a pizza for our Christmas dinner. This didn't feel particularly Christmassy, as you can imagine, but it was, incidentally, quite a nice pizza.

Yuka - Chie's sister - had joined us for the evening, so we enjoyed a bottle of champagne and some cheesey Christmas music (Frank and Bing again) along with our pizza - this did feel Christmassy.

I headed out around 7 to brave the cold December night and find a phonebox so I could call round my family. On the first attempt I managed to get hold of my Mum, my brother and my Dad, although Vera was proving to be a bit elusive. Given that my family are pretty spread out, I have always (as long as I can remember) had at least someone in the family not present on Christmas day, and as such requiring a phone call. So this routine of phoning round the family has become part of the Christmas day tradition for me, and therefore this was another thing that did feel Christmassy. It was the first time I'd done this from a phonebox in Tokyo, but I was accompanied by my trusty hipflask and this helped dull this part of the reality quite well.

When I got back to the flat we had mulled wine and Christmas Pudding with clotted cream (Yuka had brought the Christmas Pudding, bless her, and the imported food shop miraculously had clotted cream). So again this felt like Christmas.

We also watched a DVD, so again, a bit like that old Christmas tradition of collapsing in front of the TV after dangerously overeating!

We walked Yuka to the station around 11, and on the way back I had one last go at the phonebox to phone Vera. As luck would have it I got through this time, and so my Christmas phoning requirements were all complete.

So I guess in hindsight it wasn't all that bad. Between these highlights I had spells of feeling a bit down in the dumps, and wanting to go home, but I guess all things considered it could have been worse.

You didn't tell me about the hipflask! I thought you were loquacious.

Posted by Mum at 2005/12/26 11:28:20.

It was purely medicinal - to keep out the cold!

Posted by John at 2005/12/26 13:51:03.

Have you tried using Skype for calling home, John? I use it to call the folks on their home phone back in the UK and it is very cheap (EUR1 (60p)/hour) and hugely convenient...

Have a good rest of Christmas!

Bryan

Posted by Bryan Hollamby at 2005/12/27 01:27:23.

A pizza for Christmas ?! Ho ho ho !

Posted by Sheri at 2005/12/27 17:31:34.

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