Nice to Meet You, Odairi- sama and Ohina- sama!

Dear Mom and Dad,

          The weather today was such a refreshing change from what we had a couple of days ago- now the sky is a clear blue and the temperature’s warmer! It was also just right on time for our Hinamatsuri celebration.

            But, first things first: we did the usual morning jobs we had, then we had free play time. On the table, we did some cutting practice with Chiaki, and we did our best to put our tiny fingers in the right place and then we chanted as we did, “Open… Close… Open… Close!”  Yay! A big pat on our backs for a job well done.

            Some of our friends came to the small table where we did some painting and coloring with Posca markers and colored markers. Swish- swish, pat- pat our markers went. Colors splashed and mixed on the paper; some of us tried to draw some pictures.

            We played with our animal figurines on the carpet with Goh- san and Sayaka. We also had Pauline come into our class today, as John- John isn’t here today. We all sang and danced together as she played the ukulele,  while we waited for our special guests.

            At last, our guests arrived! Some of our friends' moms came, and we noticed that they brought two beautiful dolls wearing kimonos.

            We sat down in a circle, and the mommies explained that today is Hinamatsuri, and it is also a Girl’s Day celebration, wishing the girls to always have good luck and good health. Kai said we could come closer to take a look at the beautiful dolls called Hina dolls. But, we should be really careful and just use our eyes, and not our hands. Ooh! That took a lot of self- control, whew!

             We saw that they had layers of beautiful kimono on: Odairi- sama, or the Emperor, had a magnificent black kimono with his hair in a chonmage (we asked some of the boys if they wanted to have their in a chonmage, heehee). The Ohina- sama, or the Empress, had layers of brightly colored kimono; we counted the layers, and there were at least twelve! Oh my! We pointed out color purple, pink, red; the Ohina- sama was also holding a fan with different colors. She had very, very long hair, which I think, the girls adored.  Some of our friends were curious and asked if the Hina dolls have names; the mommies answered that they are just called Odairi- sama and Ohina- sama. One of our friend couldn’t help but ask if we can eat cakes as part of the celebration. The moms answered, “Well, you can ask your mom if she will let you eat some cake, then it’s okay!” Heehee! I think when we go home, we’ll ask our moms and dads the same thing.

            We listened to a traditional Hinamatsuri song, which was really beautiful. I hope next week, we can practice singing it again.

            We then headed to the table where some beautiful Ohina-sama and Odairi- sama decorations made out of origami paper and glued to paper plates. We stuck more petals, flowers, and fans on it. How pretty!

            Next comes our favorite part- food! We shared some cookies with Hinamatsuri drawings on it, they were really yummy! They looked really nice, too- too nice to eat!

            We thanked our mommies afterwards, and we went outside for a walk around Azabu- Juban. The weather was really nice, and we couldn’t resist not going out. Hope the weather stays the same over the weekend!

See you next week, Ohana!

Lots of love,

All the caring children from Buds class 2016-2017