Happy year of the dragon!

Happy New Year!
2012 is, as well as being a leap year, and possibly the doomsday year (like it is almost every year may I add. I am personally looking forward to Year 2038 myself.)...
achem. 2012 is the year of the Dragon! Which may possibly be the coolest zodiac animal ever...Except for the Dog of course. (no guesses as to which year this blogger was born in).

the above photo is of various new years themed docorations, including a little dragon charm I got at a shrine. I think I'm going to start collecting all of the animals. What, don't look at me like that, I will most likely still be around 12 years from now! Even though I am turning 30 in less than 2 weeks. It does somewhat feel like the world might be ending, if only for me personally.

... Believe it or not, no one puts up all the new years cards on display as I have in this arrangement. It's quite a shame as they're attractive and original, they should be enjoyed before being shuttered up in the yearly shoebox-in-the-closet, only to be unearthed the next year when looking up addresses.
But if you're like my mother in law and recieve several hundred.... I suppose my decoration scheme wouldn't really work. ;)

Anyways, this year we did lots of new years Japanese traditional events. Like cleaning the whole house and sending out new years cards and going to a shrine and stuff.
But check out our awesome new years card, featuring 'Noboru-kun', our 20 year old newt that refuses to die. It's the year of the dragon so we figured eh, close enough.

Hope you all have similarly unusually long life-spans!
Cheers to a happy and healthy 2012~ kanpai!