Season’s Greetings

It is Christmas Eve now and we hope all our past and future students, parents, agents and staff have a great festive season. We have been sharing and re-posting a few good English learning resources on our Facebook page and Twitter profile recently, though we hope everybody is now on holiday and not thinking about work or study for the next week.
But although the 25th of December is an important day in many countries, it would be wrong to think that just because many people around the world give presents and enjoy other modern customs of Christmas, that is actually a holiday everywhere. I Jon, am in Japan, and my children, at a local Japanese school, are at school today and tomorrow. Sure the children and teachers will be organising class parties etc. but otherwise it is a normal day. Luckily they had a national holiday yesterday, 23rd, which is the Japanese Emperor’s birthday.
As an international festival there really is so much everyone can learn from the Christmas and New Year season about other cultures, and through that, understand other cultures and peoples. We tend to focus on the British and American interpretation of the festival and its traditions, but there is so much more to enjoy. And then there is New Year, and the continuation of some Christmas festivities into January, then there are different new year dates around the world, most famously Chinese New Year.
Please enjoy whatever you are doing this season.
Soon it will be time to start thinking about 2015 and summer…………..