Christmas cards, hasshin! (クリスマスカード発信！)

That phrase probably isn't very clever to the Japanese...in fact, if a Japanese person reads it, she'll probably say, "What a dork." (Maybe she'll assume I'm a military otaku.)

Regardless, the Christmas cards are out. They may actually arrive on time. It depends on our illustrious postal service.

The international cards probably won't be on time, but you never know.

I do know, however, that the card going to my host family in Japan will be on time...because it's a New Year's Card. Yay Japan! It's actually supposed to be a postcard, but I didn't have any that were fitting. Also, I was going to take a picture of it to share, but I forgot before I sealed the envelope. Doy.

This is what I wrote:

あけましておめでとうございます
皆様の御健康をお祈り申し上げます

平成十六年　元旦　<-- see this? I messed up and wrote Heisei 16 instead of Heisei 17...;P
ヘザー・メドズ

For those of you who can't decipher it from the About.com article, I'll romanize and translate:

akemashite omedetou gozaimasu	Happy New Year!
minasama no gokenkou o oinori moushiagemasu	Wishing everyone good health.
Heisei juurokunen gantan	Heisei Era, year 16 (oops), the morning of January 1
hezaa medozu	Heather Meadows

I'd told Sam yesterday that I was going to write an actual letter, but time constraints got the better of me...plus, after finding the standard style for the postcard, I wanted to follow it as best as I could.

Hopefully my host family won't hold my mistake against me...that's what I get for copying the kanji from the About.com article instead of figuring out what it would be on my own ;P

(I also don't know if "medozu" is the best way to represent "Meadows"...meh. And I forgot to draw a rooster on the card!)