Week 33: T'was the week that contained Christmas....

And it was the longest week in the history of the world! Sapporo had a very white Christmas.

Last Friday I was chatting with my newest labmate, who seemed surprised that I had made some egg and dairy-free cookies for our lab holiday party. It turns out that her son is allergic to dairy and eggs, so I gave her the recipe I used (and promised her stacks more in the future). In return, she made me a dish of beans and pumpkin on Monday!! It was the winter solstice, and apparently if you eat red beans and pumpkin on the night of the winter solstice you will be healthy for the winter, so she brought me a treat to keep me healthy! I was really touched. It isn't often that someone brings me a vegetarian treat in Japan!! She is also an excellent Japanese teacher. I have learned a lot from chatting with her!!

Tuesday was a holiday because it was the Emporor's Birthday!! I celebrated by going to work!!! I also made three types of cake with my friend's daughter and watched Elf with her and ate popcorn :) 

Wednesday was Christmas Eve!! We had a party at the International Hall. We had vegan leek banitsa and Velingrad salad and sweet potatoes and vegnog (which has really grown on me for the past few years!) and the cakes that we made the day before. There was also a type of soda bread with a coin hidden inside, and whoever receives the piece with the coin will have a lucky year. That piece went to my friend's daughter!

I got the smile!

A festivus feast!

We also decided to open gifts because it would be cruel to make my neigbour's daughter wait until her mother was home on the 25th (as she knew that she had to stay late). 

Most of these were for some lucky kid

My friend's kid received a MAGIC SET!! So now she can be a magician!! She also got a 20-in-one game set from Santa Claus (who is Canadian, y'know) and a copy of The Little Prince in Japanese (because she has already read Anne of Green Gables). We played several rounds of Othello, which is one of my favourite games, and my friend's husband serenaded us on the guitar. Have I mentioned that he is a pro guitar player? Here is a YouTube video of my friend's husband playing Sapporo Christmas, a song he composed last year. 

For Christmas I received some CAT SOCKS, a cool Japanese comb, and a copy of his cd!

Christmas socks!!

On Friday I found out something that I wish I would have learned earlier: next week is a holiday??! Nobody bothered to tell me or my Bulgarian pal, so luckily we have lots of things in the works that can't be put off until later, and in any case there is a lab progress meeting the week after the holiday anyway... so I don't think we will be the only ones hanging around. But it might have been nice to know in advance :p

The weekend flew by, and I didn't have much time to do anything exciting. The snow was too wet again for effective snowboarding practice, but I made plans with a labmate to try going to a REAL hill in the new year. I am excited!!