Santa Claus: Lost in Japan

If you're looking to spice up your children's Christmas party this year (maybe cutting it close) or want to start planning ahead for next year, here's a suggestion...make a video of Santa on his way to the party. It builds a lot of anticipation for Santa's arrival and the kids really love to see Santa out and about in their own neighborhood.

We captured some video of Santa getting lost on his way to our Christmas parties in Tokyo and Yokohama this year, making sure to catch him around some areas our students know well...our classroom, the park, on the train, KFC, etc. We edited it together into seven segments separated by static and checked in at various points throughout the party, as if checking a live satellite feed, to see where Santa was. Here's a video of all the segments edited together...11 minutes long so grab a cup of coffee!

For those who have never been to Japan, you might want to check out how nice and clean the convenience stores are, the style of the houses in the neighborhood, a Mom riding her bike with her son in the child seat on back (something you see a lot of...often with one child in front and one in back...it's really nice...cars are just much less a part of daily life for most folks in Japan as compared with the States), what a typical neighborhood park looks like, how the kids respond to KFC by yelling out "Ken-tu-cky" (chicken is the popular choice for Christmas here and KFC does HUGE business around the 25th...notice Colonel Sanders in his Santa suit), what a typical residential train station looks like, and how immaculate the taxi is (complete with the standard automatic door).