Surprise!

So I know that there might be a few family members who follow this, so I’ll write all about my excitement leading up to Christmas early, and just save the post for after I have left!

That’s right!

It is being kept from my extended family that I will be coming home for Christmas and New Year!  I leave back home in less than 2 weeks now, and will return shortly after New Year. :D  I’m so excited about it!  I can hardly wait to see the look on my little cousins’ faces when they see me there!  I know they miss me, and I miss all my family too!  It will be really nice to be able to see everyone again.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do the same next year, and if I was being 100% honest I’d kind of be interested in spending a Christmas in Japan.  I think, of course, it would be best if it was also with my family here.  I’d love to be able to take a trip though and spend Christmas here somewhere.  I say this now though, I might actually be more down than I imagine spending Christmas without my family.  I’m sure that I’d probably plan something with A-san if she were free, and some of my co-workers/friends here would most likely invite me to join them as well.  Not to mention gatherings that the other JETs here would plan.

I’ve also been trying to find small gifts to take with me for my various family members.  I think I have pretty much everyone, although at this point there are a few people that I’d like to find some small extra gifts for as well.  One of these days I may make another trip back to Izumo, (maybe even leave super early to purchase the items before my first flight) and get one or two more last minute items.  It’s not much, one of the things I was considering was replacing a phone strap I bought that is starting to get dirty and fall apart.  It still looks pretty right now, but I may save it for later.  I may also get one final set of chopsticks personalized for someone.  The difficult part of it all was actually finding the time to go and buy the gifts themselves.  One of the problems I found myself running into was the fact that the only time I really had to go would be on the weekends if they were open.  With Saturday English school, and other appointments it made it a little difficult.  But something I realized, maybe a bit late, was that when I do get out of school I actually still have time to go into town if I wanted too.  The malls don’t close until about 9 or 10, but what I risk is the hour drive home making me pretty late when I get back.  Then I have to get ready for school the next day.  I think if I really needed to I could, but I’d still rather save my trips for the weekend.

I still have the last few Christmas cards finish and mail home, and I also wanted to prepare/set up the presents I did buy already.  I thought of the idea of making little gift bags of stuff for all the many little ones we have in the family now.  I found a nice shop that sells little candies pretty cheap, so I bought a bunch and am going to give them to the kids.  Thinking about it know, there is one that I should have gotten something for, but I didn’t think about it until now.  I’ll have to go see if I can find something small before I leave.  I know that it should be fairly easy to find something, and maybe that day that I got back to Izumo.

These next few evenings are going to be pretty busy for me.  One thing I want to do before I leave is give the apartment a nice once over!  LOL I’ve got papers and various things littering all over the place.  I can’t even remember the last time my table in my room was cleared off.  It’s been filled with papers and flyers from various thing for weeks, and even after I bought some bins to sort them into, I still haven’t gotten around to it.  I also have some boxes from things I’ve bought that I need to break down as well.  I’m happy at least that the day I leave is plastic trash day (which I realize now is a kinda funny thing to be happy about…)!  That way when I come back I won’t have a super full bag of plastic trash to throw away.