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Neighborhood Christmas Party

We had a nice little neighborhood Christmas party at our local community center at noon today. The timing was a little disappointing because we had to record the Ohio State vs Wisconsin game and watch it later. We were looking forward to watching it live. Oh well.

The party was really geared toward kids. Each family brought one dish per adult and we ended up with a ton of food. The kids had a ring toss game and a ping pong throwing contest. These games were scored throughout the party and depending on your final score at the end determined your place in line to choose a gift.

Caroline was really shy and didn’t want to play any of the games. So I waited in line with her for the ring toss one. Most of the kids weren’t hitting any ringers, but they were still having fun. So Caroline steps up and is shy and doesn’t want to throw her ring, but finally she throws it and of course hits a ringer on the first try and the crowd goes wild! So then she just hides her face in my shoulder. But she got up the courage to throw her other two rings. She missed those ones. Then after we stepped away she couldn’t stop talking about how she hit the ringer on that first throw. So even though she was shy, she was proud of herself and had lots of fun.

Nathan didn’t want to play any of the games, but he still got to choose a gift anyways.

Then at the end there was a Janken Pon tournament for some more adult prizes. Janken Pon is basically Rock, Paper, Scissors in Japan. But its pretty epic. It was the highlight of the day actually. Heather jumped right in and competed in a tournament for an Ikebana. Which is a flower arrangement that someone at the party made. So Heather tells Caroline and I, “I’m going to go win that”, without an ounce of doubt on her face. And by golly, she won.

Ikebana is a serious art in Japan. And the woman that made that particular piece came up to us afterwards and told us about how she made it. Hopefully she wasn’t disappointed it went to some unappreciative foreigners.

Overall it was a really great experience. Plus we got to come home and watch OSU win the Big Ten Championship… stressfully.

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