<Begin Segment 17>
JS: Do you remember New Year's Day or any special activities like mochitsuki?
WM: Mochitsuki, we gotta do mochi, and we had a service and mochi in the morning, and then after that we had a lot of food.
JS: Where would you make the mochi?
WM: My home.
JS: At your home?
WM: But they had the nice...
JS: Usu?
WM: ...about three family come and help us. See, he made everything good, my dad.
TI: So he made the mallets, the usu...
WM: You know, that cement, and then we got to hit. But we got to help him.
TI: And how much mochi would the three families make? Would you pound all day?
WM: I don't know. I (don't) remember.
TI: Must have been long.
JS: And then would your mother make all the gochiso for New Year's, and people come to visit your house?
WM: Yeah. Japanese style.
JS: Uh-huh. And then what would you do on New Year's Day? Would you go to other house?
WM: Yeah, someplace, friend's.
TI: Earlier you talked about, at the Methodist church you had Halloween parties...
WM: And Christmas parties.
TI: Yeah, I was going to ask about the Christmas, because that must have been a big event.
WM: Big, yeah.
TI: So describe what would happen at the Christmas party. Where would you have the Christmas party?
WM: Like we'd sing, (play X-mas story) or something. We'd go to get candy, they'd give box of candy. [Laughs]
TI: Back then, did they have things like Santa Claus? Did Santa Claus come to the Christmas party?
WM: Yeah, and give the kids...
TI: So I'm curious, who played the part of Santa Claus?
WM: I don't know. [Laughs]
TI: So it wasn't someone just in the community that they put on a costume?
WM: Yeah, they got a big guy.
TI: Did you have, like, a Christmas pageant to tell the story of the birth of Jesus?
WM: Yeah.
TI: Yeah? And did you have that at the church or at the theater?
WM: Church, I think.
JS: At the church.
WM: Theater was singing and...
JS: Oh, like... oh, okay.
<End Segment 17> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.