After Christmas: Gear up for New Year's!

Once Christmas has passed, It's time to prepare for THE big holiday of the year,  New Year's! No after Christmas sales; everything is quickly shuffled off the shelves to make way for ingredients for cooking O-sechi and other New Year's food, as well as loads of cleaning supplies! I stopped at the grocery store on Christmas morning to pick up some last minute items for Christmas dinner. Decorations were already down. One little boy asked his mother why the Santa lights were in a basket by the cash register. "Oh, well, Christmas if over. Now leave those alone!" she replied. Not every place is so quick, but our "Christmas" is also all packed away within a few days. It was especially hard to be motivated to clean at the end of the year due to the COLD! As you can see, we even got some snow at the very end of the year (and a few times after that as well!). New Year's Eve was snowy and freezing...the cold chill kept more people home than usual on New Year's Day as well. More on that next time!