“Better late than never.”

Here in Nagashima we believe in the “better late than never” philosophy and this is why we had no shame celebrating our annual Easter party today, June the first. While we had every intention of celebrating Easter several months earlier we just had a hard time finding a weekend that was good for everyone. After a little digging through the closet I was able to locate the 2 different egg decorating kits and plastic eggs I ordered off the Internet that we would use for today’s party.

We started the party off by decorating about 5 dozen eggs and the creative ideas that everyone came up with were really fantastic! I always have a blast sharing a little piece of my culture with my Japanese friends and today as I watched the kiddies and their parents decorating eggs together I couldn’t help but smile. I like it that the kids have so much fun with Easter, in fact, Ryuto, my 5 year old neighbor was so excited about today that he woke up on his own at 6:00 am to get ready for our Easter party which didn’t actually start until noon.

Since today’s forecast called for sunny and clear skies we got out grills and barbecued it Japanese style with lots of veggies, meat, and fish. While the ladies were busily gossiping about the latest news spreading around the island, us dudes were working through the details regarding our upcoming MEN'S NIGHT OUT that we are planning on having sometime in the near future. It should be a good time!

Once our bellies were full everyone took a break from the barbecue and while the kids waited anxiously the adults gathered around to hide the plastic eggs and other goodies we had prepared for the Easter egg hunt. Last year, Ryuto suggested that putting money inside the eggs would be much more fun than jellybeans so this year we honored his request and put money in every single egg. One egg even contained 100 yen ( about a dollar) and believe me hearing this news was an exciting moment for the egg hunters!

After the hunt had finished we had all the kids count their eggs and line up for their “special prizes” which were really the exact same toys, but they didn't notice. We’d say, “Wow, you got 3 blue eggs? Okay, here is crayon set!!” The kids ate it up too!

As the sun started to go down we called it a day and despite being exhausted, sunburned, and dehydrated I think that today might just have been the best Easter Nagashima has ever seen!