Christmas, Oki-style!

To put it bluntly, this holiday season had the real potential to suck.

Let's be honest -- I'm in a foreign country, thousands of miles from family, and my husband is deployed.  It would be really easy to hunker down into hibernation mode, watch sappy movies and feel sorry for myself until Christmastime is over.  Luckily, I have a great set of friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. who have been keeping me busy these last few weeks. 

One of those friends, Karin, invited me to the Okinawa Children's Zoo's "Christmas Fantasy" show last night.

Sorry for the blurry iPhone photos -- I forgot my camera at home

Typically, the Japanese don't celebrate Christmas.  (New Year's is a far more important holiday for them.)  But with such a large U.S. military population on island, I think the Okinawans tend to want to join in on the festivities.  Very few Okinawans are Christian, so it's celebrated less for religious reasons and more because -- well -- it's so darn fun.


Games and vendors

All of the vendors wore Santa robes

The event at Kodomo No-Kuni (translation: Children's World) featured food, games, live performances and enough Christmas lights to be visible from outer space. 

We stuffed our faces with yakitori and soba and watched some sort of Japanese dragon song/dance.  It was adorable, to put it mildly.

We also listened to a screechy routine by Japanese pre-teens in schoolgirl outfits.  Thankfully, there is no video to accompany that performance.

A truck moved through the crowd, blasting snow at visitors.  (Snow!  In Okinawa!)  Our group narrowly avoided the snowmobile, and I'm a bit grateful that we did.  It was drizzly and in the low 60's, so the snow quickly turned into slush. 

The boxy, blurry thing in the center is the moving snow blaster. 

At other locations in the park, people could play in igloos, sled and pelt each other with snowballs.  These areas seemed overrun with small children, though, so we avoided them. 

Karin and her husband, Gary, outside the Tunnel of Love.  There was a HUGE line just to walk through this heart-shaped tunnel.

After we wandered around a bit, we caught a laser light show and walked back to Karins' house.  Overall, it was a great night!  Christmas in Japan is definitely a different experience from back home in the States, but it's nice to see another culture's interpretation of the holiday season.  (Now if Loren and I could just get stationed in Italy or Germany ... I bet their Christmases are incredible.)

Season's greetings from Okinawa!