Hello Holman, Hello Fall

My favorite time of year is here and thankfully, so is my husband. Nick has been home about a week now, and the crisp breeze of fall has as well!

After a long year of deployments, Nick is home to stay (at least we hope) for a while.

Home just in time for Halloween, we decided to take my Japanese students trick-or-treating together. Of course normally when I meet my students it is at their house or mine, to learn English (and even when I teach at home, Nick is always deployed or at work). But, they always ask me about my "otto" (husband), and were super excited to finally get to meet him.

Halloween is an American holiday (if you can even call it that), one that is not traditionally celebrated in Japan. Of course many Japanese try to adopt some of our Western traditions, and therefore it isn't uncommon to see a bit of Halloween decorations in a few of the stores. One of my students even had her house decorated for Halloween/Fall (though the Japanese are minimalists so her decorations were very spare, albeit adorable!)

Considering Halloween isn't a Japanese holiday, the children here don't trick-or-treat on October 31st like in the US...but of course we have our American base here, with hundreds of families who's kids shouldn't have to miss out on an American past-time just because they live overseas. Therefore, every year our base puts on a big trick-or-treating event.

My friend dressed up as Anpanman....my favorite Japanese character (he's like the Mickey Mouse of Japan)...she made the costume herself, very impressive!

The event is "open base" which means non-military are allowed on base, as long as they are with a "sponsor". In other words, I was allowed to take my Japanese students on base with me, so they could go trick-or-treating with the American children.

Though it wasn't their first time (they went last year with the girl who taught them before me), my students enjoyed dressing up in costume and getting candy....Two little witches, Mini Mouse, and Rapunzel!

I've always loved Halloween myself....it was fun to show my students how we celebrate Halloween in the States and finally introduce them to Nick. (Being girls, they all thought he was "hannndsome" and were very shy with him....super cute!)

Happy Fall and Happy Homecoming!