On Christmas Eve we had four visitors from Japan arrive at our home in Oceanside CA.
They had arranged to come for a two night stay with us through an organization called SERVAS.
organization promotes world peace through travelers staying in people's homes and exchanging stories and life experiences. Servas is an international, non-governmental, multicultural peace association run by volunteers in over 100 countries. Founded in 1949 by Bob Luitweiler as a peace movement, Servas International is a non-profit organization working to build understanding, tolerance and world peace. Dick had been involved with SERVAS many years ago, and we both decided that we would very much like to be a host home.Our guests this Christmas were a wife, Tomoko, and husband, her sister, Sonoko, and their 92 year old mother. They live in Koyoto, Japanese and all love to travel and have done so extensively.
Hosting them during our Christmas holiday gave us the chance to think deeply about what the holiday mean to us, and what were the really essential parts of it that we could share with international visitors.
We picked them up from the train station, went out to eat lunch at an old style American diner for cheeseburgers, off to the beach and then the botanical gardens....sounds pretty traditional so far, huh?Okay, then , after dinner, we offered them the chance to make gingerbread houses, which the two sisters excelled at. This was a great artistic process.
The next day, we did a cooking show of how to make turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pies...the whole works. Then our Mexican-American friends Sandra and Ramon arrived. An additional opportunity to have cross cultural discussions.
Evening brought the chance to Christmas stockings, storytelling and a lot of fun. Everyone went to bed tired, but happy. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
