Sho mo nai!

Wheee! Christmas Package Tochaku!

My package has arrivéd!

When they grasped by my shouts of "Kita kiTA!" that this was no ordinary delivery of tests, stationary, or ping-pong balls, but rather a package of gifts, I heard more than one envious, "ii na..."

It's hard to say what in the box made me the most happy.
Recently I have been eating a variety of chips here that are a lot like kettle cooked old dutch, and lo and behold there's the real deal! Now I can taste and compare! Whee! Also there were some long lost flavours in the box, too: salt and vinegar, onion and garlic, and most droolably, ketchup. To think I hated the ketchup flavour when I was a kid.
Scattered throughout the box were little packs skittles, twizzlers, swedish berries, and other gummies. Also to be found was a pack of wine gums, the ever essential advent calendar, and a pack of bassett's all-sorts. Mmmm, black licorice.
Also in the box there were pumpkin pie ingredients, but no crust. That was really thoughtful of my parents, but if I am honest with myself I will probably never actually use them... especially when we are having a church christmas dinner this sunday and someone else is already making pumpkin pies. But who could have foretold that? Perhaps I'll ask her where she scored the crusts.
But the thing which made me dance for joy was the fruitcake. I LOVE a good fruitcake. And moreso since I have come here and everyone always talks about eating christmas cake on Christmas, and they mean strawberry shortcake. It makes me yearn for a proper Christmas cake. The real deal. So when I saw that soft red-bagged package a grin splashed across my face and I picked the little half cube up and did my I'm-so-happy-I-got-Christmas-cake dance around the office.
On closer inspection, it smells very much like the Christmas cakes made by my grandmother, and the foil wrap plus tape would seem to support that. It's great timing, too. I think I'll cut half of it up into small pieces and bring it to tonight's eikaiwa Christmas party. Or maybe just a third.
Anyway, I'm not sure which grandmother made the fruitcake, but I suspect it's the same one who made the clodhoppers and almond bark also included in the box, but in any case she has out done herself! Hooray Grandma!

I carefully placed a bag over the top of the Christmas stocking so that I couldn't see the contents.
There also appears to be bag with various Christmas decorations in there, but I'll wait until I get home tonight to open that up, so I can hang stuff up right then. Sending stuff overseas being what it is, it's hard to disguise the contents of gifts with overly large packages or deceptive pointless contents. So at least I won't be totally annihilated by curiousity like I am most years at home. But I am still very eager to get to the opening! Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Thankyou everybody!

posted by Fletcher @ 8:48 p.m.