Christmas is on in big way! I have been baking up a storm and planning my holidays and buying turkeys. I don’t know if we can cook a turkey but I will definitely try. I will ask our friends at a local restaurant if they could supply us with an oven. I think the local Brazilian butcher shop might have one too. I really want to have a turkey! I love that meat even though it makes me tired. Is it true that turkey has some kind of sleepy making chemical in it? I would definitely believe it. I recently had my first baking class with the grade 5 classes at Souga Elementary. I don’t know what is wrong with those kids but there is definitely something. The kids in the first class ate the dough and the flour. As a consequence, two boys were sent to hospital after puking everywhere and another was allowed to just stay at school and be ill. Why did you eat flour children? The dough I can understand, I ate some of that too. I don't like it when kids throw up. When I have kids I want the non-vomiting kind. As a result of this vomiting extravaganza, all cookies that had not already been consumed were confiscated by the school nurse. She put on plastic gloves to put them into her little evidence baggies and then sent them off to her school nurse lab to be “tested” for food poisoning. The cookies are made of flour butter, powdered sugar and food colouring. I have a very hard time believing that the cookies gave them food poisoning. I think more accurately speaking; kids tend to throw up after they eat a handful of flour. You can see the kid at the front in the first picture is already starting to feel the effects. Also the kid nearest me. Yhe next photo is evidence of how poop-obcessed this country is. They think that poop is a cute character. It appears in many childrens' drawnings. Here is it one student's tribute to that poop man.

At the end of the day the teachers said they were so sorry that the children got food poisoning, more specifically that I gave them food poisoning. I didn’t give them anything! I could have given them rabies at that juncture of the day as I was feeling almost feral with irritation. We had to go to the Kocho-sensei’s office and hear about his concerns and parents phoned in as well asking what should be done. Well, how about we call the bomb squad and have them implode all remaining baked goods for the safety of Japan? Argh! I am supposed to do that class again with the grade one kids next week. The principal told me not to lose heart and that I should try the lesson again as long as we were okayed by the school nurse’s results and those of the hospital. I know this will be in our local paper as a story about some cookie poisoning foreigner who is loose in the public schools. Well, this morning I heard by email that everyone is now fine and that we will make the same cookies again but this time in the highly sterile environment of the classroom instead of the cooking room. Whatever.
The evening of the baked goods disaster, I had to teach another three hour cooking class for my night class students. I say had to, but really I had been looking forward to this. It turned out very well and they really got into it. Baking cookies is one of my favourite things at Christmas and I didn’t want to have bad feelings towards them. We made three kinds of cookies and candies and everyone got to take home a package of them. We also had a gift exchange and a lovely dinner. I felt so much calmer after that. Also the bottle of wine after dinner really helped. Thanks Luke! He also held it down as the sole man at a baking party. Big respect!
On the weekend, I had a great time at Sonic. We danced up a storm even after the club had closed. I love going out with a bunch of friends and just having a good time. We slept most of the day away on Sunday which was nice too. I lost a crown on one of my teeth at the club because some guy (Daisuke-san) accidentally hit me in the face with his elbow. That tooth was already in a less than ideal state and I had developed a plan to extract it myself to avoid going back to the dentist. So the elbow to the face was a most fortuitous turn of events. It hurt but not too badly. I just went to the pharmacy the next day and got a drop of some substance put on it that got rid of any remaining pain instantly. I don’t know what the stuff was but it looked like dry ice and smelled like some kind of glue. I should really go back to the dentist and get the last little bit cleaned up but I can’t feel anything there so I don’t really want to mess around.

So with my Christmas spirit regained, I have made a list of the things I have always really loved about Christmas to share with my students. They won’t understand most of it probably but it is more for me than them. I have added it here for your perusal.

The Best Things about Christmas:

These are all of things that make Christmas my favourite holiday of the entire year:

1. Eating a giant turkey dinner that leaves you completely exhausted.
2. Pop Shoppe pop that we are allowed to pick out.
3. Carefully wrapping presents that I have picked out especially for each person I know.
4. Sitting down for tea after an extreme amount of shopping.
5. Eating fruit cake with extra old cheddar and a cup of tea.
6. Doing charity work and being especially nice to people.
7. Visiting family and friends.
8. Baking Christmas cookies and birthday cakes for my family members with December birthdays.
9. Writing Christmas cards and letters.
10.Receiving Christmas cards and letters.
11.Watching Christmas shows and movies.
12.Opening the advent calendar.
13.Eating roasted chestnuts.
14.Cutting down or purchasing a Christmas tree and then decorating it with the decorations we have had since we were children.
15.Doing the Christmas grocery shopping.
16.Breakfast on Christmas morning with my parents.
17.Buying a suet ball for the squirrels and birds in the back yard.
18.Tying bells to the cats or watching them climb the Christmas tree.
19.Watching everyone open the gifts I bought for them.
20.Going skating at the city hall public skating rink.
21.Wearing the paper hat that comes inside the Christmas cracker.
22.My teachers all wearing holiday themed sweaters and earrings.
23.Work parties and gift exchanges.
24.Christmas eve appetizer dinner with my parents.
25.Going to Church and lighting the candles and singing all those great Christmas hymns.