#3-2 A Classic Christmas Weekend | Winter Break in Canada

Hello, there!

Continuing from my last post,

Here's more about how I spend my winter break in Canada 🍁

👉🏻Click here for the previous blog

Can you believe winter break was already half a year ago?

And somehow, 2025 is already halfway over...

Time is flying way too fast ⏰

Lately, I've been stating to understand what my parents meant when they used to say,

"We still feel like we're in our twenties." 😂

Seeing my friends from school all posting about their new jobs on social media has made me realize... yeah, I'm that age now too...

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My Host Family Is Super Into Christmas 🎄

In Japan, when Christmas season comes around, you see towns all lit up, Christmas cakes, KFC, and those big toy catalogs from Toys"R"Us everywhere, right?

(For the record, my family stopped celebrating Christmas when my little brother hit six grade 😂)

But last year, I got to experience a real Christmas holiday, North American style!

The light were INSANE

Word can't really describe how over-the-top the decorations were,

so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Bear that looks like it came straight out of Costco

First impression: Stranger Things lights

Reindeer & Mickey Mouse

If you look closely, there's even an inflatable train!

Honestly, it looked like a legit theme park.

No kidding 😂

Some neighbors had lights up too,

but my host family's house was the only one with massive inflatables!

Three Christmas Dinners In One Week!?

In Japan, we usually spend Christmas with a partner and New Year's with family.

But in North America, it's the oppositeーChristmas is all about family, and New Year's is for partner and friends.

We has dinner with host mom's parents at a restaurant,

then another dinner at home with host dad's parents,

and another Christmas dinner at my host aunt's house.

We watched The Grinch together

What "Family" Really Means

After spending time with my host family's extended family over the week,

I truly felt like part of the family.

Even though I was just a 16-year-old exchange student

who could barely speak English when I stayed with them for two months,

they welcomed me back at 22 like nothing had changed.

Back then, I could hardly hold a conversation with my host mom, but now we can have proper chats.

It made me realizeーall the effort I put into learning English over the past six years really paid off.

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So I was planning to wrap up this Canada series in two posts,

but turns out I have a lot more stories to tell 😂

Looks like a few more are coming your way!

Thanks so much for reading to the end 💖

See you next time~

Bye:)

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I’m on social media too, so feel free to follow me 🥹

🌱 Instagram (daily life) → @kaede.t___ (with three underscores!)

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