Happy Christmas!

Ho ho ho!!  Merry Christmas!  It is the tail end of Christmas Day, and I have had a fantastic couple of days here.  This is mostly due to the fact that I have some of the most amazing friends and family that a guy could ask for.  Also, when I say mostly, I mean entirely.  Seriously; a sincere thank you to all the wonderful people who made my Christmas Eve and Day fantastic.  Etsuko, Machiko, Chinatsu, Hayato, Yukiko and Machiko's kids made Christmas Eve a blast.  Sydney's family in Nagoya made Christmas Day equal wonderful, so thank you Shannon, Katsumi, Donavan, Naoe, Julia, Conner, Liam, and Shannon's friend Bridget!  Ok, now with the thank you's take care of, let me tell you how I spent my holiday.


First, you should all know in advance that I am listening to 'A Vince Guaraldi Christmas,' so I am in a very good mood!  

Bartender Andrew!

So my holiday officially started at 9:00 pm on Thursday the 22nd, when I finished my last class.  The next morning, Sarah left for Las Vegas where she would be spending Christmas with her family.  Later that afternoon, John left for Thailand where he would be spending the holidays with his friend from SJU.  I was officially home alone!  Thankfully, I didn't spend much time by myself though.  Friday night, I headed to our local watering hole (The Melting pOt) where I have sort of picked up a part time job bartending and washing dishes and basically doing whatever they need.  Its a pretty cool gig, because I mostly get paid a bit to hang out, talk to people, listen to music and drink.  I have definitely had worse jobs in the past.  Friday night at the Pot featured a local band.  The place wasn't terribly busy, but the people that did come came for the band, so the crowd was generally into the music.  It was a pretty good night.  I stayed there until about 3:00 or so, then headed home.  


Christmas Eve day was a day of difficult decision making.  The crux of the issue was what to do with my newfound free time.  My choices were:  stay at home and do nothing, thereby taking full advantage of my newly started holiday, or actually go out and accomplish something.  Part of my decision was made for me when I slept until 1:00 pm, but I still had to figure out what to do with the rest of my day.  I ended up compromising and going to UniQlo to buy some winter clothes, because it is getting chilly, and I want to be warm when  I hit the slopes later this week.  I also attempted to make Eggnog from scratch, but failed miserably.  This was mostly due to my inability to read Kanji and Price Cut's inability to stock the necessary ingredients.  I could not for the life of me find heavy cream OR whole milk.  It was a travesty.  Oh well.


Christmas Eve itself was fantastic.  I got picked up around 6:00 pm by my friend Etsuko, who took me to my friend Machiko's house for a wonderful Christmas party.  We were joined there by Chinatsu, Hayato, and Machiko's kids.  It was wonderful.  Machiko cooked us a delicious dinner.  It was a bit different than the massive Norwegian feast I have become accustomed to over the years with the Gudmundson family, but it was amazing nonetheless.  She cooked two roast chickens, shepherd's pie and my personal favorite, a fresh apple pie!!  She earned herself a Christmas hug with that pie.  I was so happy to see apple pie.  Words can't express.  Thank you!!!  We had champagne, a few beers and capped it all off with cookies.  Machiko's boyfriend also added to the night, even though he is currently living in the States.  He sent Machiko's kids 'Wii Just Dance!' for their Christmas present.  That game is crazy!  We danced for a solid two hours, until no one but the kids had enough energy to move.  It was spectacular.  I learned that MC Hammer's 'Can't Touch This' is not as easy as it looks!  

My presents from Hayato and Chinatsu, from left to right.

Also, I apparently really do look like Anpanman.  Machiko's youngest daughter doesn't know my name and doesn't care to learn it, because she will call me nothing but Anpanman.  "Anpanman, play Wii!" "blah blah blah Anpanman, blah blah blah!"  Seriously.  It also didn't help matters any that Chinatsu and Hayato both bought me Anpan-presents.  Hayato bought me a candy bowl shaped like Anpanman, and Chinatsu bought me a cute little Anpanman charm.  I still don't see the resemblance, but there must be something to it.


Let me preface Christmas Morning by saying that Sydney Rajchel has one cool family.  On Christmas morning, I woke up bright and early and headed up to Nagoya to joined Sydney's Aunts Shannon and and Naoe, and Uncles Katsumi and Donovan.  On the way, I got to use my awesome present from my even more awesome mom!  She bought me a pair of Bose headphones because she knows I spend a ton of time on the train and she wanted me to spend it in peace!  Thanks mom!  You are super!!  But I digress.  Back to Christmas with Shannon's family.  I met Shannon and Co. at the Kanayama train station in Nagoya, and we went to a buffet restaurant for brunch/lunch.  The food was pretty good, and very wide ranging.  I had steak bits, lasagna, snow crab legs, seafood salad, oysters, some fried chicken type things stuffed with something or other that seemed vaguely cheesy, fruit, ice cream and cake.  Needless to say, I was stuffed to the gills.  All-you-can-eat buffets are timed in Japan, so we basically stuffed out faces for a solid 90 minutes. 

From left to right:  Shannon, me,
Julia and Katsumi.

 After the buffet, we returned to Shannon's apartment, and skyped with Sydney's family.  After a lovely skype session, we headed over to Shannon's friends house for more food, drinks and games.  Bridget, Shannon's friend, made fondue so event though we were full when we arrived, we pretty much continuously ate for the next 5 hours.  Shannon's brother and his wife have two sons, Liam and Conner, who are 8 and 3 respectively.  They are adorable, and in my vain attempt to avoid the food, I played Wii games with the two of them and Bridget's son for a while.  Fun times were had by all!

At Shannon's friend's house

I capped off a great day with a short chat with Sydney and a nice long chat with my Mom, Karroll, Neil and Brayton!  For Christmas, I sent Brayton some Japanese money, which pretty much made his day.  I also discovered that Karroll is doing his level best to kill himself before I get home.  For those of you who don't know, Karroll is my step-dad.  Apparently, he was slicing an onion to put on a cheeseburger and decided that his finger would make a better topping than said onion.  So Mom got to make a wonderful Christmas Eve emergency room run.  Karroll:  please don't die before I come home!!!


Sorry this post is so long and rather devoid of pictures.  As soon as I get pictures from the weekend, I will update the post!  Merry Christmas everybody!!