Earlier in the evening I spent a few hours at my coworkers Christmas party, enjoying a few festive beverages. I excused myself early to walk home in order to have a video chat with my family. I may have consumed slightly more festive beverages than I imagined, because the walk home was longer and more challenging than usual. As I weaved my way through the streets of Numazu with a big smile on my face, I sent an email to my family to let them know I was going to be a few minutes late.

At the start of December I mailed Christmas presents back to Canada, and had just received some presents from Canada. Since I couldn’t be home for Christmas, my family and I decided that we would use the magic of technology to open presents together on a video call. Japan is in a very different time zone than Winnipeg, so I was enjoying the last few hours of Christmas Day while my family had just finished their breakfast on Christmas morning.

I warned my family that I had just returned from a Christmas party, and did my best to appear sober on the camera. If you have ever seen a drunk person intentionally trying to appear sober you will have some idea of how well that worked (not very). I don’t think I did anything too embarrassing, and I was wearing pants the entire time.

Being home for Christmas to open presents with my family would have been great, but being able to spend some time with them and open presents together on camera was a reasonable substitute. Merry Christmas to all!