I enjoyed a nice, generally laid-back holiday season
this year, celebrating Christmas and New Year’s at parties with friends new and
old.
Since all my usual friends had plans with
their families or significant others, I turned to the Internet to find people
with whom I could celebrate Christmas Eve. I used the website meetup.com, an awesome place to find
people and groups with similar interests to you and to join various events to
hangout with together. With a bit of luck I found a Christmas Eve home party and decided to join.
The party was hosted by an organizer of the
Tokyo Spontaneous Hangout group, and
was a fun little event with a variety of both Japanese and foreigners living in
Tokyo. Food included home baked turkey with cranberry sauce, rotisserie chicken,
pizza, beef cake, mashed potatoes, and salads. There were desserts such as Christmas
cake (a staple in Japan), and various other sweets. And we also had some drinks
including glühwein and cinnamon & apple hot wine. It was a good little
event and I was happy to join. Below are some pictures:
Christmas Day
Whereas the Christmas Eve party was small but filled with lots of chatting and socializing with new friends, Christmas Day was very quiet but still quite enjoyable. I met up with a friend of mine and we simply walked around Tokyo Station a bit and then had a light dinner.
New Year's Eve
For New Year's Eve, my friend hosted a small party at her home (but totally unrelated to the meetup website). The plan was to chill out for awhile, cook and eat some food, have some drinks together, and then head out to Tokyo Tower for the countdown. Friends popped in and out throughout the very casual, fun party. I'm so lucky to have South American friends because (not only their awesome personalities but also) their food is super delicious :-)
When the clock started getting closer to midnight, we started gathering everyone to leave for the countdown but by departed a bit later than expected, missed our train, and thus changed our original plans. Instead of Tokyo Tower, we ended up near Shinjuku Station for the countdown but it was still a good time.
After the quick celebration we headed over to Roppongi for our first salsa dancing of 2015, and ended the night there before we all returned to our homes. There's no pictures of the salsa club (I didn't have my camera and way too dark for and smart phone photos), but it was packed as usual!
