Flowers for Santa

Wow, how long has it been? Sorry I haven't posted in a while.

This is a picture of some flowers that I received in December. Actually, it wasn't for me per se... it was for "Santa".

In mid-December of last year, I was asked by my school if I could visit a local kindergarten to play as Santa. Of course I said I would do it, but I was really nervous about it. A lot of questions popped up in my mind as I thought about this special visit:

"How am I going to pull this off? I've never done this before..."
"What if the kids pull my beard off?"
"How will I communicate to the kids? They don't know much English."
"What questions are they going to ask me? Should I google info on Santa?"
"What should I do if one of the kids cry?"

Anyway, the day before my kindergarten visit, I was told that my translator came down with the flu. I would have to answer all questions to Santa in the most simple English ever, yet I could not use Japanese at all because Santa "doesn't know how to speak Japanese".

The day of my visit came, and I was quite surprised. The children were so well-behaved, did a singing performance for me, and were so polite when I handed gifts to them. It was funny because I kept telling myself to say "ho ho ho" every 30 seconds or so... and the kids loved the Santa chuckles. Also, the questions they gave me were simple, and I made very simple replies in English with gestures... so there was no problem there. Some of the kids sat next to me and patted me on the back. We took pictures and had a great time. I didn't worry once about a child getting too rowdy. What was weird was, despite the fact that I didn't look anything at all like Santa (I didn't even have a pillow to make me look fat), the kids were so excited and happy to see me.

When I was about to leave, one of the people from the kindergarten came up and gave me a few things to take before I left. One was a cake and the other was the pot of flowers. The woman said that the kids wanted to give this pot of flowers to Santa as a token of their gratitude.

"A... pot of... flowers. What am I going to do with this?", I thought to myself. It had just snowed for the first time in the year that day, it was freezing and I was going to leave Japan for two weeks to visit my family and friends in America. How would I be able to take care of something like this? Every time my parents left for monthly trips to China and asked me to take care of their 50+ plants while they were gone, half of them would die by my hand... no matter how much I would water them and take care of them. I was just lousy with plants.

When I got back to school, I gave my fellow English teachers the cake to share amongst themselves. As for the plant, I asked one of the English teachers (let's call her Mrs. S) if she could take care of the plant while I was away from Japan. She said she would and I left Japan about 2 days afterwards.

I remember coming back to Japan, settling back into my school routine and getting ready for the new semester. 2 weeks after I came back to school, Mrs. S brought me the pot of flowers that I totally forgot about. The flowers looked like they were in really bad shape and seemed to have wilted quite a bit. She asked me what should we do about the plant.

In a knee-jerk reaction, I told her that I have no idea what to do with those flowers, and she said that she would keep it on her desk and care for it. But during that day, I started to feel bad about pushing that task on Mrs. S. Also, the kids from that kindergarten gave it to "Santa", and I didn't think it would be right for "Santa" to refuse such a kind gesture.

Later that day, I asked Mrs. S to return the flowers to me. "Santa" needed to take good care of his gift from the kids.

This picture was taken just yesterday. After some watering and some pruning, the plant looks healthy and happy. I occasionally put it by the window to catch some sunlight when it makes its rare appearance. Some of the teachers gave me good advice on how to care for the plant. What impresses me the most about this plant... every time a leaf or flower dies, another one takes its place quickly. This little plant is really persevering right now, and it makes me happy every day I see it. It reminds me of those really energetic kids that I saw that day.

Before I forget, here's a picture of me as "Santa".



I'm glad Santa made some kids in Japan happy. In turn, those same kids made "Santa" really happy as well.