Ice Candles...

Not too far from where we live is a farm that makes ice-cream, it is a regular haunt for us during the warmer months. They have a yard full of dangerous looking bikes that the kids can ride, you can go into the shed and pet the animals, watch the automatic milking machine, picnic on the grounds or hire the BBQ area and of course eat ice-cream. Every year, the third Saturday of Decemeber they make ice-candles. They use the freezer space that is usually used for ice-cream to freeze the candles, the yard is cleared of bikes and they layout the candles in patterns, there is free soup and of course, ice-cream! It has become one of our Christmas traditions, this year we got there just as the sun set behind Fuji-san...

Next year is the year of the dragon but instead of a dragon there was a sea horse, daddy-ebi tried to explain why, it was something to do with the kanji for seahorse being the same as dragon, or something like that!

I'm not sure what they use but many of the candles were coloured, so pretty..

and the soup was more than welcome, it was bitterly cold so hot soup went down a treat.

It makes me laugh to think that one of Ebi-kuns winter memories is likely to be of him eating ice-cream, in winter, next to a roaring fire!

We were happy to see some of friends there too, so much better when there are others to enjoy the fun with and we haven't seen this family for about a year, even better to catch up.

Then at the end of the night, the kids get permission to blow out the candles and jump on all the ice, Ebi-kun being Ebi-kun tried to rescue one of them saying that it was too beautiful to smash, but even when it is all smashed up it is still really pretty....

Now we have done the ice-candles it feels like we are really in the swing of the festive season, and on the drive home we looked out for fancy lights, great evening!