December 25 3:58am CST

Nevada, Iowa

(December 25, 6:48 pm JST)

 

 

            A fresh layer of snow had covered the ground giving the world a crisp new look. All was quiet in the house as Mercedes tip toed down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the living room where the large Christmas tree stood. Underneath it sat dozens of presents, with more stuffed into a three foot long stocking that hung on the mantel. Still trying to be quiet she walked into the dinning room and pulled a chair from that room into the living room. She dragged it to the fireplace and stood up on the chair to look at the plate and glass that sat on the mantel. Both were completely empty. With a small squeak of excitement she climbed down from the chair and dragged it back into the dinning room. Once she was sure that her parents wouldn’t know that she had already been down to have a look, she tip toed back up stairs and headed for her parents room. Quickly she climbed onto their bed and jumped up and down between them.

            “Wake up! Its Christmas!”

            “What time is it this year?” Kaden groaned as he tried to roll over and ignore the fact that he was bouncing up and down.

            “4 am,” Emily replied sleepily. 

            “That’s earlier than last year,” Kaden moaned. “At this rate she’s going to be waking up just in time to see Santa arrive.”

            “That would be cool,” Mercedes cheered as she continued to bounce. Kaden sat up quickly and grabbed his daughter pulling her down beside him.

            “But you see, if you see Santa when he comes, he won’t leave any presents.”

            “Mommy is that true?” Mercedes crawled over her mothers figure to look at her face.

            “Yep, and if he knows that you woke us up before the sun was up he may just come back and take the presents away.”

            “But that’s mean,” Mercedes argued.

            “Its all part of being good. You have to keep it up right up till the sun rises, or its ash from the fireplace,” Kaden added. There was a small fwomp as Mercedes flopped down between her parents,

            “Fine then, I’ll lay right here and the second the sun is up, I’ll wake up again.”

            “That sounds like a fine idea,” Kaden yawned and fell back to sleep.

 

December 25 6:48pm JST

Sendai, Northern Japan

(December 25, 3:48am CST)

 

           

It was almost 7 o’clock in the house of Celeste Sakamoto. She had fallen asleep earlier in the day as she watched her movies. When she had woken up she found her family standing around her looking disappointed. Celeste was supposed to have made dinner that night, and it was supposed to have been finished and on the table when her husband and children had returned home. However, her one dinner she was allowed to make had yet to have been started. 

You see, Celeste wasn’t a very good cook, even in America. She only knew how to make things with a microwave and an oven. When she had moved to Japan she found that ovens weren’t that popular, and she never learned how to cook without using one. When her children were young, they had all lived with her husband’s parents and his mother did all the cooking. She did try, mind you, to teach Celeste how to cook and to be a proper housewife. But Celeste was never interested in being a proper Japanese housewife. Her and her mother-in-law clashed many times until they had finally moved into their own home, on the other side of town. Celeste got her oven and her family was bombarded by and array of casseroles and microwavable meals. Until one day her eight-year-old daughter told her to leave the kitchen. From that day on her daughter had been in charge of the cooking. It had taken Celeste a couple of years before they would even let her fix this one meal. 

Her family had decided that while they waited for her to cook dinner they would take their baths. They played Jaken, or otherwise known as Rock Paper Scissors in the west, to decide who would get to go first. Shino, Celeste’s husband, had won as he usually did. Though, nobody could quite figure out how he always knew what the others were going to choose. He now sat at the table reading through his e-mail on his laptop.

            “Even with all these mail filters, I still get 50 plus junk mail messages a day,” Shino complained as he repeatedly tapped the mouse button deleting all the mail.

“It’s because of all those newsletters you sign up for,” Celeste replied in a scolding sort of voice.

“Now, I only sign up for the ones that guarantee to keep my address private,” he replied and was going to continue his argument but instead stopped suddenly as an e-ail caught his eye. He looked at his wife and hesitated a bit. “Do you know anyone named Emily?”

“Why would somebody I know be mailing you,” Celeste asked as she pulled a pie from the oven and sat it on the stove to cool.

“I don’t know, just thought I’d ask.”

“Dad, will you tell Yoshie to get out of the bath before it gets cold,” Celeste followed the voice that spoke Japanese to the doorway from the hall and saw her son standing there. He was a young man who looked very much like his father, tall with black hair. Though his eyes were more rounded and his skin a bit lighter.

“Just be patient Kazuo. She’ll be out soon,” Celeste said. Kazuo didn’t reply and was just about to say something to his father, when he was pushed from behind. 

“Quit being such a prude. The bathroom’s yours,” a girl about four years younger had appeared behind him. She was a few inches shorter than her brother, but looked more like her mother, except she had her father’s skin color. Her hair was black and pulled back into a ponytail so you could se her brown roots. 

“Have you decided on a school yet?" Kazuo asked as he turned toward the stairs.

“I still have time,” Yoshie said and stuck her tongue out at him. Yoshie was in her final year of Jr. High and needed to study for her entrance exams into high school, which were coming up in January and February. But Kazuo felt that she wasn’t studying as much as she should have been and that their mother wasn’t doing enough about it.

“Just be sure to remember to dye your hair before hand, your roots are showing,” Kazuo added as he turned and headed back upstairs. Kazuo was in his senior year of high school so he had to prepare for his entrance exams into collage, which were held in January every year. His ultimate goal was to get into Tokyo University. However, nobody, including himself, expected him to make it into the school. It would be like an average American student trying to get into Princeton or Yale. Instead the school he was expected to go to was Tohoku University, right in Sendai. It was a prestigious university and a bit difficult to get into, but it was in the reach of Kazuo. Plus because it was in the same city meant that he didn’t have to pay for housing and could just live at home.  Though, he would have rather moved away from his mother than to have stayed there another four years. However, financially, this was the better choice.  

Celeste watched as her son disappeared up the stairs and didn’t see Yoshie sneak into the kitchen to check her cooking, “He’s stopped talking to me.”

“That’s just your imagination, dear,” Shino replied, but had also realized the same thing.

“Oh, yea? When was the last time he’s spoken English to anyone?”

“Well, he never did really like English.”

“He did when he was little,” Celeste frowned.