Since December has begun it seems like my time has been passing so quickly. We had Christmas already and now we have only one day left before New Year’s Eve. I had a Wagashi Making Workshop in December and that was already about a month ago.

On one Sunday afternoon people gathered in the cosy basement space of the Havan Store for making the Christmas themed Wagashi together. The participants were consisted of four groups which were two friends groups, two sisters and one individual person. The youngest attendee this time was one of the sisters who was 12 years old girl and who’d wanted to join us in our previous Halloween themed workshop but couldn’t. So it was my great pleasure that we had her for this session as one of attendees.

One of the friends groups of three girls came to our event as the birthday celebration of one of the girls’. The birthday girl seemed to be a big Japanese culture lover and it was a brilliant way to spend a day together with her and I felt privileged that they chose my workshop for this memorable occasion.

Wagashi Making Workshop in the Christmas Theme

I chose three designs for this workshop. They were a Snowman, a Christmas Pudding and a Christmas Tree. I always enjoy seeing that participans get creative and make the sweets in their own way so I normally keep my examples quite simple and leave some space that attendees can develop by themselves. After deciding these three sweets there was a litle doubt in my mind that there might not be enough room to show their creativity, however, I was very wrong. All of the participants used all the materials cleverly and created something remarkable in the end.

We started making from a Christmas Pudding and then moved onto a Snowman and then Christmas Tree. Which design do you think participants were the most creative with?

The first sweet the Christmas Pudding went almost as I planned, but I was pleased to see that some people created decorative leaves even for this one. And then the next one, Snowman. My original design was just with an orange carrot nose and a simple blue scarf but people used all the extra materials and created something so special. Some snowman’s scarf have a pattern or with a pompom at the ends. Some others were wearing ear covers and woollen or top hats.

The last sweet Christmas trees came with a slightly different shape and size with different decoration, but some came with some presents at the bottom of it too. I was so delighted to see these individual designs created during the class.

My next Wagashi Making Workshop will be on Sunday the 26th of January. The theme will be New Year/early spring and the designs will be revealed shortly. If you’d like to join us in the next class in New Year, please keep checking on my social media. I will place the notification very soon.