Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus

Mr. and Mrs. Santa, some of the teachers in the pre-school department, and the mysterious candle ceremony fairy.


Yes, most of these kids are crying. It took a long time to get all of them from running out of the photo. I don't know if it was worth it.


These older kids (about 4 years old) like Santa a little. I'm still not sure that they understood who he was.



This picture is just to demonstrate the art of overpackaging in Japan. This small piece of gum is individually wrapped, and placed into this box with other small pieces of individually wrapped gum. Then this box is wrapped in cellophane, which is wrapped with other boxes in a plastic bag to sell in the grocery store. And sometimes when you buy gum, it comes with a little mini post-it notepad used for spitting the gum out. It is insane. Every time I buy more than one item at the store, at least one of those items is (unnecessarily) placed in it's own little plastic bag before being placed in the larger plastic bag with the other item. Is there any way to stop this? I've learned the word for "no, no, it's ok" but am not always able to use it in time.