Father Christmas finds Luna kids early!

Well,

Contrary to the previous blog posting, Santa (aka Father Christmas) does know where Luna's children like to hang out!

He found us just down the lane at the local kominkan - we can't fit everybody who wants to party with us into the school! Over 60 children and 28 mums & dads?!

With so many party-goers this year, we had to rotate people through four static activities. Marty had drawn a lovely Rudolph sadly missing his nose, which blindfolded rescuers tried to glue back in the right place. Ski gloves make that hard! Damian was multiplying snowmen in the crafty corner. Naomi had again produced a couple of amazing winterscapes for everyone to colour in as a mozaic, and Jim had competitive Christmas colour & paste ladder races for all ages. Everyone was a winner!

Boulangerie Ciel catered for us this year - we have outgrown the abilities of MosBurger to feed us, and Mac ran out of potatoes (can you believe?) when we needed them last time. So, healthy & local option win - win!

Santa found us after a speedy clean up; everyone sat on his knee & posed for photos (iPhones everywhere) before taking a present home.

Recognise anyone? Please share on twitter, like us on Luna's Facebook page, download pics from Flickr...and tell your friends!

Most of our classes are already full for 2016 - hurry hurry folks!

None of this happened without Yukari's awesome organising skills...thank you xxx

Christmas in Japan

In class this week, my junior high school class was reading about Christmas for teens in the UK, in their Mary Glasgow magazine "Crown". We decided to compare our own answers, and this is what we found.

Do you like Christmas?

• Yuta: No, because Santa Claus doesn't come to my house. Maybe I'm a bad boy?
• Karen: No, because I don't get any Christmas presents.
• Jim: No, because I don't like working until the very last minute and not having time to buy nice presents or prepare my home.

Did you get what you wanted last Christmas?

• Yuta: No, I didn't. I wanted a Fender guitar.
• Karen: No, I didn't. I wanted money.
• Jim: No, I didn't. I got socks instead of books about cricket in Afghanistan & the West Indies.

What did you do last Christmas Day?

• Yuta: I went to school, as usual. My teacher gave me some chocolate.
• Karen: I went to school.
• Jim: I skyped my brother's family in Australia & talked to my mum. After that, I started cooking with a glass of wine.

What did you eat last Christmas?

• Yuta: I ate fried chicken (my mum cooked it) at home, with my parents. I didn't have Christmas pudding because I did not know what it is. I'd like to try it this year.
• Karen: I ate chicken & Christmas cake at home with my family.
• Jim: We ate a traditional Christmas dinner that I cooked - roast turkey & vegetables, gravy, as well as other things my wife's family brought (pizza, salad, cake...) and of course we drank champagne & wine. I ate too much!

How about this year?

• Yuta: I want a new basketball, to play with my friends at school - no holiday.
• Karen: I want a polaroid camera. School is off for Christmas this year. I don't know why!
• Jim: I don't want socks. I want a gadget to turn my old analog stereo amplifier & speakers into bluetooth receivers. I hope my children do not get toy guns/swords/anything noisy!

Only one of us has a tree in the house (we have a big one outside the school)!

We'd like to know about how you celebrate Christmas.

 If you don't, what do you do instead?

And now, that Christmas party with some blues!

I have been buzzing since our end of year Christmas party on Sunday; the room was bulging with children - many of them them very young and dangling off mummy or older sisters! Two or three were so little they managed to sleep through the entire afternoon - the innocence of youth (but absolutely wonderful to see Miki-chan, Anna-chan, Fumi-chan as mummies again!). Not everything went to plan - hope you didn't notice! Main thing was that everyone was involved and everyone seemed to win something!

For the first time we "dressed" the tree - a new idea I came across through twitter last week as an alternative to musical chairs (we don't have enough!) and pass the parcel. We had an enormous alphabet soup which took a while to figure out, and then tackled Naomi's wonderful Christmas picture montage. Yukari & Mayumi delivered a delicious Christmas lunch, before a surprise guest in a red suit arrived to give everyone a present.

Enjoy the show, as we enjoyed the day!



You can find all the photos on flickr right here

What's big, tall, green and flashes a lot?

 Jingle Bells and ringing the halls with holly, or whatever you are supposed to do!!! With trying to move all our furniture out, we forgot to put the tree UP!

Thankfully, the pre-schoolers found the Christmas tree behind the sofa, along with the tinsel, lights and stockings - they ripped into the decorations and organised Jim & Naomi into putting things up.


The tree is a big job, and Santa sets wedged on top to stop it falling over...the stockings we hung up on the walls, after trying them on for size, and lots of other stuff dangling from the ceiling.

Thank you for your guidance kids - now we look nice and festive - just in time :)

Super little Christmas party

Sunday afternoon was Santa-time!

Tana and Yuki put together an excellent afternoon's entertainment for our younger students. There were so many games and activities I can barely remember them all! Naturally burning off some energy featured early on, "Freeze" and blow football. Tana's artistic background is obvious, as you can see from a lovely pair of snowmen she created for the marshmallow game, and Rudolph who was missing his nose, (temporarily!).

The children also helped us build "Merry Christmas" and made secret snowman sweet-holders for their mums. Food was wolfed down in no time...Tensions rose and the boys were mad-keen to spy Santa. In the end we all yelled very loudly out of the window...in a flash he was here. His reindeer are really fast!

Everyone had a moment with Father Chritsmas to tell him how good they had been this year (???) and tell him their names - very important that they get the right presents of course! Once again, shock that Jim was in the room simultaneously!

Happy cherubs toddled off home with mummies and daddies, with Christmas on their minds - only a few big sleeps to wait now! Great job Tana, your preparations went really well! Thank you Yuki, Milton & Michiyo for helping make things work.

Merry Christmas - soon! (More photos here)

Christmas parties at Luna

Just to let everyone know for sure for sure that we are having TWO parties at the school on Sunday.

1. Children's party is from 13:00 - 16:00 and is already fully-booked, Santa already has his sack packed (for good kids only).
   
2. Adults - from 7pm until late. This is BYO (preferably something home-made for food, a supply of whatever your preferred tipple is). Don't drink & drive! Drink all night and walk home!

Jim, Tana, Yuki

Santa's grotto

We've actually stood back a bit and encouraged our little ones to contribute more to the school's Christmas decorations this year. Feels a lot more Christmassy as a result, and we're using up a big stock of cardboard boxes that would otherwise go to waste (Yes - see "Recycling" posting below!)

Jim's Tuesday lads built a colourful snow drift by numbers. We started with some simple origami, then we took turns to throw a dice and cut our patterns accordingly eg 1 - small triangle, 2 - big square etc. After that we used some old plastic sheets to add colour. Pretty fine outcome as you can see, which now decorates the tree in our main room.

Last year we tried to make reindeer, but the antlers were very fiddly/difficult for little fingers to cut with small scissors. Santa has proved to be a lot easier! Here you can see my rowdy boys getting stuck in. They followed simple written instructions on the board (reading is an issue with this class). Apart from a pompom getting chopped off in the cutting-frenzy, the result resembled the plan...we had five unique but recognisable Santas by 5:30 to dangle in the hall!

Stating the obvious, but the girls were a lot more careful and cautious - and were keen to take their trophies home, which was nice. Tana's attempts to build Christmas tree chains proved a lot more succesful than Jim's (fell to bits!) and her class coloured theirs beautifully. We're running out of walls to hang stuff on...only SIX sleeps to the big day now!

Children's Christmas party at Luna

Sunday afternoon on December 16th was Christmas party time for all of our younger learners at Luna. It was a really cold day outside, so we made sure to do lots of running around to keep temperatures soaring & energy levels pumping.

Every year we try out new games and ideas, so that every year the party is fresh & fun. Of course we also make sure to include activities that have proved popular in years gone by - things like sticking the nose on the snowman, relay races with oranges, musical cushions & King-size blow-football. New things we tried out this year were a sausage race and learning how to dance - from the Rocky Horror Picture show...that was a real treat!

Santa's new helpers this year helped the event go really smoothly, and make sure we could all eat when we got tired & peckish! Thank you Maki, Tomoko & Ayaka - as well as to all mums & dads who joined in. As you can see, everyone wanted to meet Santa & get an early Christmas present - and happy to please, Santa very generously came to Luna with his sackful of goodies.

Although Santa looked a bit tubby this year, he had to jog here as there's no snow for Rudulph & the reindeer to pull his sleigh through! All of our good boys & girls had a moment to talk to Santa (in English of course) & tell him something about themselves (kind of a test really!). Too soon, it was time for Santa to leave and for all of us to go home - another Merry Christmas now not faraway.

Thanks to everyone who made this party such a success - please Luna's unofficial website at http://groups.msn.com/Lunasfamily/santacomestoluna2007.msnw and also at Jim's flickr site for plenty more photos of all the fun.