Christmas just wasn't the same when, instead of a ten-foot cedar tree in the living room, a cookie tree in the front hall, and small decorated and lit trees in the upstairs bedrooms, we had a small tabletop tree in the living room, and a small number of people there on the 25th. Santa brought a fun electronic game that year, but that could not take the place of the people who were absent.
And then the cousins started getting married and establishing their own traditions. And then, at 18, I left for an adventure on the other side of the world.
And! And Christmas spent at the home of one of the cousins from my childhood. What a remarkable providence!
Fast forward twenty years ...
Christmas 2009 was a rare one, in which I did not spend Christmas at the home of my cousin, with the not-so-little-anymore boys who have made my family Christmases special for most of these past twenty years, and their parents who have included me and given me the grace of family and tradition, when I have been thousands of miles from my immediate family.
My photos, which are all in a box in Japan, would make a special Christmas album, showing how we have all changed from Christmas to Christmas these past twenty years.
From the Christmas of '89 when I played jon-ken-poi [paper-rock-scissors] at the park with two little boys to Christmas '08 when I helped the youngest of the four brothers with his Japanese homework, the photos would also show:
* many, many Christmas cookies, and even a gingerbread house,
* lots of visits to various parks,
* bike rides,
* walks,
* scenic drives in the mountains,
* watching the trains,
* going to basketball practice,
* playing games,
* wonderful holiday meals with candles, and
* homemade eggnog.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
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