Date: Saturday, December 14th
Location: Mitake
Participants: 40 campers, 10 care workers, 7 LITs, 8 corporate volunteers, 10 Mirai no Mori staff, 8 KIWL santas, 1 program graduate

Program: 
At Back to Nature Christmas Special, smiley faces gathered in Mitake to enjoy the last program of 2019. Despite the cold outside, the wonders and giving spirit made the day a very warm one!

With many familiar faces welcoming new members, the day started off in a friendly atmosphere. After English Christmas games, teams were made to create a magical day together and to welcome Santas! This year, Christmas tree decoration team handmade 5 values ornaments, proudly displaying values everyone worked on throughout the year.

For many people in Team dessert, it was the first time eating rice crispy treats, and treat decoration team made it even more enjoyable with fun icing art.
Team “Omotenashi” enjoyed practicing special English to greet each santa, made medals for them.
Team Christmas cards was as usual, very creative making colorful cards to share the thank you with all the partners in 2019.

When we were all ready to welcome our Santas, 10 santas on the bikes arrived with big smiles after cycling 70km. We enjoyed delicious stew, played some games with them, and finally moved on to the present time everyone was looking for.

This year, we had socks from KEEN and a lot of snacks from Costco, and the campers loved them! Everyone shared with Santa what was most fun in 2019, and their goal for 2020 during present time.

After saying goodbye to the santas, we learned about true Christmas spirit “giving”, and the campers made presents and cards for those who couldn’t make it to the program, to become “santa” themselves for their friends and families.

We would like to thank everyone who joined this program, our sponsor for their continuous support for making this special event possible! We wish you a lovely holiday season!