From America_Days at Pleasant Hill HS_Dec.2015

Now another year is being over.  Everybody is enjoying happy holidays.  Here comes another monthly report from Oregon, USA.  Ellie Goto, a 10th grader of Otsuma Nakano High School, who is attending Pleasant Hill High School in Oregon as an exchange student for a year to study.  How happy she feels in her happiest holidays.

How was your holiday, guys? 🙂 “♪So this is Christmas.”

Our Christmas here was so much fun!!  We found a lot of lights on the houses shining and shimmering very beautifully.  Everyone got together and shared bunch of meals and drinks for Christmas. Yes! Here comes the best time of the year – happy holidays!

Before this Christmas, we had a Winter Concert at school.  I performed a solo and duet singing “All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey with another exchange student from Germany.  We also sang and listened to other Holiday songs like "Happy Christmas" by great late John Lennon. I'm really proud of my host sister singing her very own solo song!  She is a fantastic singer with her sweet voice.

We did many things before Christmas. I watched so many Christmas movies. Do you know "Elf,” which is based on the story of a funny Elf?  It's not famous in Japan but it is really popular here in America. "Christmas Carol", "Home alone", and "The Santa Claus" are also popular holiday movies, which are well-known in Japan.  My host family likes to watch the movies. You can see how happy this makes me because I love watching movies too!!!! We watched Star Wars, which was so much fun, too.

Well, on the Christmas Eve, we made so many treats for friends. What we made are white oreo balls, turtles, nuts with chocolates, coconuts cookies and several others. We delivered these all over town for 4 hours.

On Christmas morning, we woke up at 7 o'clock and opened presents from each member of family, and also from Santa! I gave Christmas presents to them too.

I used to have turkey on Christmas in Japan. Though, this year I had ham with blueberry sauce, which was awesome.

I'm more than happy to get presents from many people!! Great meals, great presents and great family are the best things to share this great joy with.

I'm really grateful for all family and friends who I have fun with, so I feel pretty sad that time flies so fast here. Only six months left till I leave here:/

Thank you so much for reading my report!!

Please stay warm and I wish all of you will enjoy a happy new year;-)

Best wishes,

Ellie Goto

皆さんのクリスマスはいかがでしたか？私達のクリスマスはたくさんの家に飾られてイルミネーションが輝いて、家族や親戚が家に集まりご飯を食べてとても楽しかったです！クリスマスの前、私は学校のWinter Concertでソロとデュエットをマライア・キャリーの''All I want for Christmas is you''の歌でやらせていただきました。

また、コンサートでは歌うだけでなく有名なジョン・レノンの''Happy Christmas''など、他のクリスマスソングも聞いたりしました。 私のホストシスターは一曲まるごとソロを歌っていて、本当に素晴らしい歌声でした。

私達がクリスマス前にしたことはそれだけではありません。私のホストファミリーは家族で一緒に映画鑑賞をする事が好きなので、私もたくさんのクリスマス映画をみたりしました。私も映画を観るのは大好きなのでとても素敵な時間でした。

クリスマスイヴでは、家族全員で周りの友達の家にお菓子を作り、計4時間かけて全員分を配りに行きました。

クリスマスの朝。私達は7時に起きて、家族一人一人とサンタからもらったクリスマスプレゼントをそれぞれ開けました。

私は普段七面鳥をクリスマスに食べるのですが、今年はブルーベリーソースがかかったハムを食べました。とても美味しかったです！

素晴らしい食事、プレゼント、家族。一年の中でも特別な時間を過ごすにはなくてはならないものです。

素敵な友達やホストファミリーがいることに感謝しつつ、時が経つのは早くもう残りが6ヶ月であることに寂しさを感じている今日この頃です。

私のレポートを読んで頂き、ありがとうございました！

皆さんも暖かくしながら良いお年をお過ごし下さいね。

後藤　絵里衣