Anna Matsushita

  Another Christmas came in 2020. At home, we were grateful more than ever that we could celebrate the day being healthy and warm under our roof. As Christmas approached, I reflected the year 2019 during Christmas period. It was one of the quiet season for travel industry, except that we had many Christmas tours from Japan to Europe, to enjoy visiting Christmas markets and see illuminations. One of the popular destination is Germany, where you can enjoy various Christmas markets. I was working on a tour which visits Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Rothenburg. The tour itself is not extremely difficult one, but the preparation itself was a great fun. I prepared how to exchange a voucher at Christmas market reception for a drink ticket, where the group can get a mug for Glühwein for each. Thinking that the group will enjoy visiting Christmas market with many stalls selling Christmas food and decorations, and enjoying in warm atmosphere, is one of the great thing working at tour operator. T...

  December was approaching, and COVID situation seemed to have eased a bit, with lesser number of patient reported in daily news. However, situation was far from over. There was no vaccine available and we had to live under pressure to keep away from social gathering. As holiday season was approaching, I thought about organizing an event to celebrate Christmas and end of year more than usual. We all knew that we have to skip parties with friends and family for December. Why not organize an online event? I planned Christmas reading event, starting from Advent until Epiphany. The rest was quite quick. I picked up a Christmassy photograph, set schedule, jotted my idea on a social media for book lovers in Japan, and invited my SNS friends to the book club. I was glad to know that there were people who interested in the idea. Some of them were quite excited to read books on Christmas, especially those who have little children that they can read Christmas books with their kids. During ou...