Ebi-kuns Gingerbread house

Another one from pre-Christmas, I keep finding more photos! I'll be happy once I have everything set up properly so they aren't all over the place.

The first gingerbread house I remember was one that my mom made me for my birthday, I was maybe 9? She made it all from scratch and tells the tale of what a pain in the butt it was to construct, first she'd get the side up then the roof would collapse, then the roof would be on and a side would fall off!

This would have all been done is secret so I can only image what kind of language was being used! She did eventually get it made and filled it with sweets then decorated it like the house in Hansel and Gretel, it looked great but... 

The gingerbread was that hard that no one could eat it, we just picked off the sweeties. The gingerbread got put out for the birds but no even they would touch it (I suspect there were several birds with dented beaks thanks to it!)

Making a gingerbread house for Christmas was never really a tradition we had at home but I'm always happy to try out something new! We have made them in the past, using graham crackers worked quite well. This year I picked up a kit when I was in Ikea, I had thought about making the gingerbread, for about 2 micro seconds, then I came to my senses!

I helped with the construction, you really do need a second pair hands, then Ebi-kun took over when it came to decorating...

He amazes me, there were very few sweeties eaten during construction phase except for the new ones he hadn't had before and wanted to try, so he had just one of each!

Looked great and the best bit, it smelt great, I think we will have to get one of these kits every year just because the smell was so good!

The house is pretty much demolished now, he took it out to share with his friends, it came back in one piece but missing all the sweeties!

Is building a gingerbread house something you do? Do you make it from scratch or use a kit?

How do you grow trees on the second floor?

[December 19]

Aghh the post that got out of sync! Oh well, I should be back up to date soon, you know before spring arrives!

This was after the Christmas market, daddy had been at work so we met up at Saitama Shintoshin for dinner then has a wander down to the hiroba to see the lights, it finally started to feel Chrsitmassy, the lights were very pretty...

Another Christmas market, far from crowded but equally rubbish! I have come to the conclusion that someone who has never been to a Christmas market has set these up! Oh well, looked pretty!

Ebi-kun found a friend, I don't know why but he really likes the Pink Panther, I always though it was stupid - we're not so alike after all.

We used to meet up with the playgroup kids here back in the day, it's a strange place, there is an open area with trees planted but they are on the second floor, there are actually shops and the bus station underneath the trees, I'm still not sure how it works!

So although it started out as a disappointing day it turned out OK in the end. And if anyone knows how the trees work at the Hiroba, let me know!

The Big Day - What we eat for Christmas breakfast

Daddy Ebi designs industrial cake machines and so each year, on the 24th his company gifts fancy cakes to all the employees. These are made by some of the top cake makers in the country and every year we have had a gorgeous cake.

This year was no exception, a stunning berry and fresh cream tart, it was every bit delicious as it looks... and so much better than the toast (cut into triangles because it was a special occasion) that we had as kids!

Santa did well this year, Star Wars thermals and a lovely snuggly Star Wars dressing gown - which his had been wearing to get extra cuddles out of everyone!

Books of course, lots and lots of books. I think he has the whole set of David Wallams books now, we are almost to the end of Billionaire Boy, if you haven't read any of them yet, go and get one - brilliant and funny!

The second Angkor Wat manga that he has been after, I think someone had a word with Santa about this one, he couldn't wait to get his nose stuck in.

And Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Lego, another gorgeous book to add to the library, Architecture The Visual Guide. Just the book itself is beautiful, printed on black and silver paper it goes perfectly with his other gifts (he is on an architecture kick and has been for quite a while)

The Lego Architect Kit. I'm planning to do a full post about all this as I'm really impressed with it all and Ebi-kun loves it, although the kit states for kids age 16+ and it contains no instructions for making anything - but it does have a great book so you can read about how architects use Lego to develop ideas and it gives you tips on how to use the kit. 

There are 1200+ pieces which are all white or transparent and it perfect for a budding architect... certainly kept him quiet for the afternoon and maybe mommy and and daddy too - except daddy the mechanical engineer had to try and make a vehicle out of his pieces!

I managed to get through the day with excessive amount of painkillers and crashed out pretty early, certainly not the best Christmas ever but not worst either. I was grateful we just had one, not very noisy child to content with, a house full of screaming kids would have finished me off!

letter #2 to santa ....

[December 24th]

Ebi-kun makes me laugh, he wrote a letter to Santa along with a request for a handprint of Elf (who leaves the gifts in his advent stocking) and left him a couple of mince pies, some brandy (we were out of sherry) and a carrot for Rudolph.

When Santa went upstairs to put the gifts into Ebi-kuns stocking, which was tied to his bed, he found another note...

Really made me chuckle, luckily Santa had a bag of chocolate sprouts handy, perfect for a well behave giraffe! And the gift for giraffe was actually the only thing he asked for.

Christmas eve I went to the doctor - he was surprised because I didn't have Ebi-kun in tow! The side of my face was swollen and painful from an infection and my glands swollen too plus I had virtually lost my voice, he put me on antibiotics, fun over Christmas! So Christmas morning I woke up about 4am with my head splitting, it felt like an alien had hatched and was trying to find a way out my skull. I took a couple of painkillers that the Dr had also prescribed but they had the opposite reaction. Not a good start to the day.

Ebi-kun climbed into bed with us at 6am and surprisingly fell to sleep for an hour! Nice. All I needed to do Christmas day was actually cook the veg, I had prepared it all and cooked the turkey the night before, which was a PITA at the time but a blessing on the actual day

The good thing was that Santa made an appearance and so everyone was happy...

In the UK we open our presents on Christmas day but I have many European friends who do it the night before, it's interesting seeing everyones facebook feed and how they celebrate.

I was also super grateful that I made the reusable Christmas bags a few years bag. Wrapping time is down to a minimum and there is next to no rubbish to throw away. It might have taken quite some time to actually make the bags but each year I use them I am more and more thankful that I made the effort to do so!

If you celebrate, when do you open your gifts?

Hibiya Christmas Market

[Saturday 19th]

Ebi-kun was feeling much better and had managed to get a relatively decent nights sleep so we decided to head into Tokyo to one of the Christmas markets. I looked into all of them and the one at Hibiya sounded the most promising.  How wrong I was...

Hibiya is quite a trek for us to get to but luckily the trains weren't too busy and the market was held in the park which is close to the station. We got there before it went dark but it was already heaving!

There was a big German tower thing, apparently the tallest in the world, so that was quite cool...

From what we could work out, there were only 4 or 5 stalls that were selling goods, the rest were all selling food - sausages seemed popular! Plus beer and mulled wine. Every stall has a massive queue so although we had gone with the intention of trying some new-to-us food we ended up just getting a mulled wine for me and a hot chocolate for Ebi-kun.

The cabins were decorated with pretty lights and there were various acts on the stage. We didn't get to see inside any of the cabins selling goods because neither of us wanted to wait in line for 20 minutes!

So we tried to make the most of it by taking lots of pictures...

Some cute little fellas on the roof...

Then we headed back to Saitama to meet Daddy for dinner. These German style markets having been popping up in Japan in recent years but maybe I have been spoiled by the ones in Manchester - which were great last time I was there, I was very disappointed with Hibiya and well, won't be bothering again unless we are actually in Europe!