Japanese New Year's Postcards

In many western countries it's tradition to send Christmas greetings to family and friends, whereas in Japan it's tradition to send greetings for each new year in the form of postcards.  We are lucky to get some really nice postcards every year.  I just wanted to share with my "readers" back home, if there are even enough to be labelled as such, some of my favorites.  I selected all hand-made postcards from our students, two written in Japanese, two in English.

These are from elementary school age kids who attend our small school:

The big character written in the center stands for "cow" complete with cow print and all.

On the second one above, I cut the students names for sake of privacy, but it was so cute... 

They are twin sisters who each signed the card.  At first they wrote their names in English letters in traditional Japanese order with the family name first, then they erased them, I'm guessing on the advice of their always attentive and very caring mom, and wrote them the more accepted English way of given name first.  These students are so thorough in everything they do.  Even their dots on the exclamation points are cute.  

The next is from a boy in my 3 year olds class...yes, THREE years old!  He wrote each of our names out, under cute faces.  I was so touched...and impressed.  His mom wrote "Happy New Year" I'm sure.

Below is a card from a student in one of our adult classes.  She hand writes / paints a limited number of postcards each year, out of which I'm fortunate to receive one.  I think it's just beautiful and so delicately written.

The last one I chose is from friends of ours.  For those of you who can't read Japanese, it says "Happy 'Nyu' Year" - 'nyu' in Japanese means milk and since it's the year of the cow, well, you get it.  And I just loved the Obama reference!  We're looking forward to the year ahead!   We got so many cute cards, wish I could share them all, but wanted to say thanks to everyone.

And if you've read this far, I just had to share my favorite American style family Christmas card, of course including my favorite kids - my niece and nephew in Maine.  The red nose is just the right touch!

You're such a great family - and I just loved your letter again this year, Emilie!  You certainly have a gift for writing.  Hope you don't mind me sharing.