Prepping for Christmas in Osaka.

Christmas is just a day away.  My third Christmas in Japan.  Unlike other years however I do have my own family now to share it with.  Not just myself, girlfriend, or family half way across the Earth.

Of course I naturally want to have a great Christmas with my wife and son.  That is the Johnston way.  Christmas in Japan for the most part sucks.  It's a more-so-than-America commerical holiday that is covered in LED Christmas lights and topped with Christmas cake.

I do have the LED Christmas lights but no cake for me.  My students gasped when I said there was no such thing in America for Christmas.  Also....ack....  I was going to say no Christmas chicken for me.  Well, at least not Christmas FRIED chicken for me.  Unfortunately, I went to Costco tonight to get supplies and after seeing the selection I thought I was going to punch someone.  Oh how I wanted to punch something.  Costco has frozen turkeys.  Too big for my oven.  They ran out of frozen chicken.  They have spiral ham for $70.  What I was really aiming for was a large turkey breast.  I bet you know why I wanted to hit something.  Yup, no turkey breast.  What...the....****.  Where did they all go?!  The Japanese customers were lining up by the dozen to buy roast chicken.  They don't want turkey.  Wheaedgjvbkh!

So, after taking some time to walk around to double check and calm down, I put the aforementioned $70 spiral ham in the shopping cart.  Next to Aki. So cute.  Except for seeing that price tag.  Then, Yukino mentioned the idea of getting a big raw chicken.  "Crap," I thought.  "Okay," I said.

I got a big bag of yams, some beautiful Coppa Parma and Le Pie d'Angeloys (both of which I have no idea the taste of), lots of rolls, muffins, bagels, and beeeerrr.

Craft beer is very difficult to find here and when you do, it is very expensive.  I was skeptical of this beer but it was worth it-

And the muffins we have no place to put (notice the squished one thanks to Yukino)-

So now we have way too many things for our refrigerator and freezer.  I can't imagine the situation we would be in with our former fridge.

Please appreciate your gigantic fridge.