It's Christmas Time!!!

It's December?!?!  Where has the time gone?  It's been a whole month since I last wrote a blog.  Have I been that busy this past month?  I guess so.

Let's see what have I been up to?  I started Japanese minyo dance at the beginning of November and just started minbu practice in December.  I also started my Christmas planning around the beginning of November.  I started to increase my training for GAR (The Great Aloha Run) since it's coming up soon (February).

There were many parties in November.  There was the "Twas the Month Before Christmas Party" that my friends invited me to.  Lots of people thought it was weird when I said that I was cooking for a Christmas party.  There were only a few that understood why it made sense to make it early.  You see, everyone works and has family so they will have their own holiday parties which they would have to attend.  So my friend decided to create Twas the Month Before Christmas.  This way we can all get together and have some Christmas fun.  Like all Hawaii parties, it was potluck.  So I signed up for main dish and brought mochiko chicken.  But, then I got into the holiday spirit and decided to make not one but two desserts.  I made everyone's favorite, tricolor chichidango and andagi (my menu was so Japanese).  To make things even more festive the chichidango was red, white and green; and when you bit into the andagi it was either red, green, or just regular white.

For those you don't know, chichidango is also known as mochi but it really isn't exactly mochi.  Dango is dumplings and chichi is milk.  So it's milk dumplings.  That's not right either.  It's just easier to call it tricolor mochi like everyone does in Hawaii.  Andagi is Okinawan doughnuts.  It's more like doughnut holes by the shape.

After my friend's Christmas party, I was busy planning my Christmas:  what to buy, who to buy for, what to bake, making shopping lists for my baking, etc.  Then Thanksgiving came.  How fun.  Time for more cooking for me.  Well this time I just baked.  Of course I made my tricolor mochi for my family since they don't really know I bake and cook now.  It's a good thing I made dessert because there wasn't much at our Thanksgiving.  My uncle said "We had to cut back somewhere, I'm sorry."  We didn't have a turkey.  My aunty had to make chicken, and my mom made tempura just for me.

Here is a close up of a piece I made for Thanksgiving.  It's supposed to be red, yellow, and orange; autumn colors. 

After Thanksgiving, of course is SHOPPING!  Well almost half my shopping was done by the time Black Friday came about (Yay!).  There was still some shopping to be done.  So I did go shopping on Friday, just not during those hectic 3:00, 4:00 AM hours.  I do want to sleep since I do work on Black Friday.  And I guess it brings us to December.  Time sure does fly.

On December 1st, I decided to bring out the tree (yes, my Christmas tree is fake).  It makes things so much simpler.  I have no way of transporting a real tree to the house.  After couple of hours of struggling with the tree, lights and decorations, the tree was 99% complete.  I still haven't found the tree topper.  Maybe I'll just make one out of ribbon.  Just have to go buy some.  Hopefully there still is some left on the store shelf.  It's amazing how fast things are being bought in places like Wal-mart.  They brought Christmas items the day after Halloween and by Thanksgiving over half the items were sold out.  

Of course, my tree would be decorated all purple.  It's my favorite color.  Does it look like I went overboard with the purple.  I don't think so.  It's not all purple.  There is charcoal and silver ornaments.  I call it my Quest Crew inspired tree (just by coincidence).  It's almost their colors except for the pinkish-purple ornaments here and there.

Now that the Christmas tree has been decorated, it's time to put some presents under that tree.  There goes the theory that Santa is a real being (sorry little kids).  So I decide to wrap my presents.  I'm OCD so things have to be perfect.  Wrapping all my presents to a combined total of 5-6 hours (damn you OCD).  But now my tree is filled with Christmas spirit.  There are decorations and presents.

This past Friday I was able to go to Oahu for an accountants meeting.  This allowed me to find any other presents for people that I could afford to buy for.  At the hotel where the meeting was held, I saw this cute pink Christmas tree that I HAD to take a picture of.  It's decorated with sakura and butterfly ribbons.  I really love Christmas decorations.  Hopefully I get a chance to go around Maui to see all the decorations at residences and at the hotels.

With everyone else stressing with Christmas, I am done with my stressing.  Well actually I am relaxing before the biggest stress of Christmas season...baking.  I am trying to mentally prepare for all the baking I will be doing for almost a week.  So many cookies are going to be baked.  I wonder what the electric bill will look like.  You have to think, Christmas tree lights and lots of baking.

What's on the list for baking?

• Choco-chip cookies
• Peanut butter cookies
• Gingerbread cookies
• Shortbread cookies
• Sugar cookies
• Peanut butter blossoms
• Oatmeal-craisin cookies
• Mini apple squares (apple crisps)

Pictures will come when I'm done baking.  Wouldn't you like to be my coworker.  This is the 2nd year I'm baking cookies for them.


This year I'm just filled with the holiday spirit.  I guess that's what you should do during these hard times.  Think of the positive and not the negative.  Everyone should share the positive of the holidays, togetherness.