00:00:01 John Daub: Merry Christmas everybody! It's now the 25th. If you're in the United States, you probably don't realize it's already Christmas here in Tokyo, Japan. That's right, we're a day ahead. I always wanted to fly back to the US and get both holidays on the same day. You can technically do that—I guess to Hawaii would be best. In this livestream, a lot of you have been watching for quite a long time. Leo has been getting bigger and bigger. We opened the presents this morning. Leo just got back from school—he has school on Christmas Day, which is crazy!

00:00:35 John Daub: We wanted to share some of the things we got for Christmas this year, get some feedback from Leo, see which one is his favorite, and talk a little about Christmas in Tokyo. I got this hat at the... He just got back. Leo, you wanna say hi? Oh, he's gonna go wash his hands. He's got a pretty big haul here, which is crazy. Look at all this stuff. We're gonna see which one is his favorite. We even got this 1960s Batman stuff, which is really amazing. That's Meredith Burgess from Rocky. Do you remember? He was a trainer, but he was also Penguin in the old 1960s series, which is pretty cool.

00:01:23 Leo: Hello, hi!

00:01:36 John Daub: Alright. What are you doing? Mama, he's doing that song you taught him that he's not supposed to do. Alright, let me show you some of the stuff here. First, last night we made gingerbread cookies. Check this out. They turned out pretty good. You guys might have seen me go to Kappabashi (kitchenware district) to get these cookie cutters. I also got a troll-like monster-looking cookie cutter. Those are really hard to make. I couldn't get it cut out so good. But see, the monster really does look like a monster. We made these gingerbread cookies—they're soft! I guess I whipped up the butter enough to keep them really soft.

00:02:23 John Daub: We gave these to Santa Claus, so when he came to Tokyo, we do the same tradition as in the US. We leave some cookies for Santa, and Santa eats them. We left a carrot for Rudolph and the other reindeer—apparently he ate that. You can tell which ones Leo made and which ones Kanae and I made. I think it's pretty clear. Can you guys pick it out? The skeleton one is pretty cool—I made that one. That might have been Leo's. Leo, look! This is your gingerbread man.

00:02:59 John Daub: And then we had a Christmas dinner last night. I want to shout out to my friends at National Azabu Supermarket in Hiroo. I got a chance to talk with some of the staff there. They have a lot of stuff that's hard to find in Japan, especially if you're making a dinner like this. We wanted something similar to what we'd have in the US. It's hard to take a picture with a kid, so I found if you just do video, you can take a screenshot. Which is nice. Look, Leo! Somehow we found a way to get a screenshot of this. And we ate most of it. I think he liked the stuffing the best.

00:03:39 John Daub: I was able to make this Italian sausage stuffing recipe I found on YouTube—it looks so darn good. It's so savory, really amazing. And then the pumpkin pie—I don't know what happened to the crust there. But we made everything pretty close to what we'd get back home. I think instead of the bird, we got a duck. Which one did you like the best? He liked the stuffing.

00:04:04 Leo: The stuffing and the... Pumpkin pie too? This one and this one and this one.

00:04:20 John Daub: Oh yeah. I'm not quite sure what that is there. But he liked my stuffing the best. He said last night, so I was quite proud—I won the day. Thanks a lot to National Azabu—if they didn't have a lot of this stuff, I probably wouldn't have been able to do it.

00:04:38 John Daub: So he got this map from Santa Claus. Let's take a look at the presents here. You woke up at like 6 or 7 o'clock, but you didn't realize Santa had been there—he's still in the bedroom. Like when I woke up at 5 or 6 in the morning as a kid, the first thing was run downstairs and attack the Christmas tree. But Leo didn't even realize because he's 3, that Santa had stopped by in Tokyo. I said, Leo, don't you know Santa was just here? And eventually he figured it out. And then this is what happened. Are you ready for this one? Leo, look—this is you in the morning. Good morning, Leo. And then he ran. Look at the big smile. He booked right to the Christmas tree. Look at all the presents. You remember this morning?

00:05:55 John Daub: We left some gingerbread cookies for Santa, and Santa came back with this note saying to be a good boy. He said he likes the Santa Claus and the reindeer friend, so he gave Leo another friend. Leo calls his plushies "friends." So Leo, look—what is this one? You opened it. Where is he, Chase? That's Chase from Paw Patrol. It's in the poop museum. You wanted Skye and some of the other Paw Patrols, but you gotta start with one. And one from the poop museum. We went to the poop museum a few weeks ago—he's still really in love with that. So yeah, he got some stuffed animals. It's fun to see his face light up when he gets something he asked Santa for. Santa was able to find a lot of this stuff—thank you to Amazon.com, they ship abroad.

00:07:09 John Daub: This is like a throwback from when I was a kid. I don't know how Santa remembered. But he is learning English too. He can speak both. So I think this is a really cool game for the car—a memory game, so you can get some brain training in there. But I remember getting this as a kid, and we broke it in like a week. You know what's really creepy? They make these toys we had as kids, but such cheap plastic—you know it's not gonna last long. But it only costs 15, 20 bucks, so it's all right. He got an 80-piece puzzle—he mastered the 30-piece ones, so time to move up. And I still can't believe they sell Simon. It's something you could do on a tablet, but kids shouldn't use tablets as much. So it's nice to have retro toys.

00:08:02 John Daub: Neil, what's this in here? You gotta tell the people—what is it? Maybe it's pumpkin pie inside the present? I think this one was a car? You're really trying hard. So maybe we should do easy-to-open wrapping. You should do it the way Dada does it—you just smash through it. Penguin? Is it the penguin? Three, two, one. Yeah, penguin. This is a picture we had when I was like seven years old—look at that. It's almost the exact same thing, holding up the action figure in the plastic wrap. This is how it used to be at Toys R Us. You'd get it off the shelf like this with all the plastic. They don't have toy stores as much anymore.

00:09:25 John Daub: He got Operation—I didn't even check the age, but says ages eight and up. I guess so kids don't eat the objects inside. But this is something we'll play together, not just in his toy box. He picked it up real fast, so maybe the age should be seven and a half. And we had the grandparents and cousins on FaceTime watching. Leo, look at your Batman—it's a Batman car. This is the old 1960s one. He likes that better because it's more child-friendly—it's open. And this one's really cool because it lights up—the headlights and everything. Santa got him an extra-large Batmobile. And then he got this one from Santa in the United States.

00:10:45 John Daub: I guess they've been selling these since the 1950s. Santa somehow found a Hess truck. Hess Oil makes these trucks every year. We've got four since he was born. This one is a fire truck. They do a really good job with all the little bells and whistles. Everything works—you can open the doors, it makes sound effects. Of course it's got lights and sirens that are gonna annoy the neighbors downstairs. But it was a lot of fun. Shout out to Santa for putting the batteries in.

00:11:36 John Daub: So this one came mysteriously in our mailbox—who knows my postal box? It came from Peter von Gomm. Okay, Leo, look at this—it's so cool. It's a Converse vest. All right, Leo, try it on. Peter's present. Why? You don't like it? No, you like it. It's just clothes over toys—you know, I was the same. You get socks and stuff. But that's a cool vest—he's gonna grow into it. This is one that's really big for kids in Japan. We love Peter von Gomm—he got us a really nice gift.

00:12:20 John Daub: This one is called the Peepy Book. Peepy is the sound it makes. When you touch it, show your Peepy Book. This pen has a speaker that says English words. He touches the item and it tells you the word. 5000 vocabulary words. He started picking up English real fast by touching them, and I'll go over it with him. I think this is American English. And the last thing he almost forgot was his stocking. We don't have a chimney, so he hung it on the wall. Hey, wait, there's one more. Inside, a Pez dispenser—Paw Patrol, so cool. Kids go through phases—he was in dinosaurs, now Paw Patrol. And a glow-in-the-dark coloring book. Santa gave him a dinosaur and Tomy car—which is like the Hot Wheels maker in Japan. They make well-made dinosaurs with moving parts for about $3 or $4 each.

00:13:52 John Daub: Santa knows he has a little collection. This Tomy car is the Neko Bus from Totoro. Leo, it's a Neko Bus. Oh, it moved away. He doesn't want to do it right now. This is the Peepy Book—and this might be his favorite present. You have to say it too. Intestines. Heart. Lung. Yeah, remember, you have to say it too. The thing is, he's gonna pick up English real fast, but you have to say the word after the pen teacher. Then muscle memory starts. He has problems with R and L a little bit—Mary could be muscle, then Merry Christmas. So you have to switch them. But his English is picking up fast. Where's your heart? Where's your lung? Your lungs? Where's your liver? Yeah, we ate liver for dinner recently too. It's different liver.

00:16:15 Kanae Daub: Yeah, you know, Christmas Day, it's not quite the same as in the US, but we were able to call family on FaceTime and share the experience. And tomorrow we'll call them—it's morning in the US. Our nieces are older now. They got a lot more presents than Leo. However, we're in Japan, and he's gonna get presents for New Year's.

00:16:49 John Daub: I got a question for Kanae. Merry Christmas. We don't have Christmas in Japan like this—like other kids don't do this, right? Or do they?

00:17:07 Kanae Daub: I think we do. Yeah, of course. Your sister's kids did something with the Christmas tree.

00:17:14 John Daub: That's interesting. Japanese today is a weekday here. Everybody goes to school, everybody goes to work. But they do Christmas. They don't do it exactly the same way, but sort of the same. Like this morning, Leo had to go to school at 9:30. It was 9:25—we gotta go. But we had a Christmas party at school today. Yeah, so we decided to bring him to join the party. That's kind of nice.

00:18:02 John Daub: But one more question—for you, most people are into Shogatsu (New Year's), but kids get presents at Shogatsu, right?

00:18:12 Kanae Daub: Not really. It's not gifts. We get otoshidama (New Year's cash gifts).

00:18:19 John Daub: Cash. So you don't get presents? But you kind of get presents, no?

00:18:24 Kanae Daub: Yeah, it's kind of a present. I also prepared otoshidama for my cousins already.

00:18:33 John Daub: How much did we give this year?

00:18:38 Kanae Daub: It's a secret—they might be watching. Japanese cousins get cash on January 1st, New Year's Day. Yeah, first, second, third. We celebrate Shogatsu, New Year's.

00:19:04 Kanae Daub: It was not under the tree. I had a stocking, small socks. I had to hang it next to my pillow. What? Then Santa put stuff in your stocking next to your head? How did Santa do that without you waking up? That's high-risk.

00:19:28 Kanae Daub: I think all people do, but my family was like that. And it's a funny story. When I was in elementary school, I ordered something big—a game for Super Famicom. I got a letter from Santa in the morning. Santa said, I'm so sorry, I couldn't bring your present because it's too big. But I told your parents, so they can get it for you.

00:20:06 John Daub: Oh my god. So Santa speaks Japanese.

00:20:09 Kanae Daub: Yeah, he can speak all languages, of course, for kids.

00:20:23 John Daub: All right, thank you for the info. So that's the Japanese perspective on Christmas here. It's kind of not the same, but sort of is. There's an effort to be like an American Christmas, but it's never gonna be because it's Japan—so there's an original Japanese way to do it.

00:20:43 John Daub: I want to shout out now very quickly—it's Christmas Eve in the US. This is from Ellis and David—they sent me this video. I send them Daimyo tier Patreon packages with Tomy cars every few months, and they've been collecting them. They made a Christmas village—look, there's the Tokyo bus, Japanese police car. It looks like Hakone in a way. Penguins over there. And this was the one from this month—a Tomy car truck. I still got three more. Then the postal truck, Hot Wheels bus, century car—look at the details on this little village. Such a fun way to use them. I was really surprised. Thank you to those guys—they also made this ornament. Ellis is amazing at handmade stuff. I've got embroidered shirts from him. You showed us your apartment a couple weeks ago in Tokyo—to the nicest guys. Super appreciate it. Much love.

00:22:40 John Daub: And Carrie, nice to hopefully see you at Shogatsu—you're away from family, maybe your first Christmas in Japan. It's different—you gotta go to Kentucky Fried Chicken or FamilyMart. Yesterday I showed you the chicken inside FamilyMart. Go check that out. They have Christmas chicken. We got ours at the supermarket—Miyazaki chicken from Kyushu. But FamilyMart had everything better, in smaller portions. Christmas cake for only $15. I'm shocked how much FamilyMart upped their game—better than 7-Eleven. They had family roasted chicken—look how good it looks. This would've been better than our full-size bird. We should've gotten three.

00:24:10 John Daub: A lot of people say, oh my gosh—I grew up in the 80s, she in the 90s. Most of my childhood was 80s—if you watch Stranger Things, that's it: riding banana-seat bicycles through the neighborhood, no worries, trick-or-treating. If you were born in the 60s, 70s, 80s, you were lucky. This is Frumpy, my friend from when I was a kid—over 50 years old, handmade in Brooklyn, New York. Looks like a rabbit-dog, with a t-shirt saying "Frumpy." If anybody knows his story, I'd love info. Leo ripped off his tag, but now Leo hangs out with Frumpy—he puts him next to my pillow: "Dad, Frumpy's here."

00:25:49 John Daub: This hat came from the 100-yen shop—that's pretty cool for Kurisumasu (Christmas). Alright, everybody, that's all we got. Merry Christmas. We're gonna go to maybe the best Christmas market at Marunouchi. Skytree looked good, but I wasn't happy with it. The GaijinPot one wasn't good. Marunouchi had Christmas lights and Japanese small business owners—so more Christmassy, authentic. Christmas Day, we'll get a Christmas cake and make cookies. There's Leo's Christmas haul. Apparently he likes the Batmobile and Peepy Book best.

00:26:59 Leo: He loves the port. Poo.

00:27:10 John Daub: They did not put a poo in there. Leo, poo. Oh my gosh. Poopy? Can you do poopy? This is not good. Alright. Heir to the throne, Merry Christmas. Thank you buddy. We're going to take it to the Christmas market, get pictures—maybe go live. Merry Christmas. There's Chase in the tree. Ah! We wanted to share a little of our Christmas because it's Christmas Eve in the US. These livestreams are like our home videos—we watch them back years later. No one's gonna delete it—it's on YouTube. So yeah, there you go. You can't cut that out—that stuff just happens. Alright, Leo, take a picture, everybody. All right, bye. This is why you do video for pictures—if he runs away, screenshot it. We'll see you in the next livestream—maybe later today. Bye bye. Merry Christmas. Bye bye.