Tanabata Memories and Wishes for the Future Written on Tanzaku

Tanabata in Hokkaido is different from that in Honshu. Held on August 7th, it is a unique custom where children parade through the neighborhood with the password, "Give us a candle."

When you hear "Tanabata in Hokkaido," you probably think,"Give us a candle?"
"Give us a candle?" What does that mean? On the day of Tanabata, children wear yukata, carry lanterns in their hands, and go around to houses in the neighborhood. The song they sing at that time is,

Give us a candle, give it to us,If you don't give us one, we'll scratch you!

While they sing "give us a candle," what they really want isn't a candle.
In reality, they are walking around to getcandy. The basic pattern is to ring the doorbell at someone's house and start singing.
For the past few years, due to the influence of COVID-19 and other factors, they haven't come, but since I started being on the side of giving out candy, the mainstream has been children going around to houses like door-to-door salespeople, saying through the intercom, "We've come for the 'give us a candle' tradition."
I used to prepare and wait for children from other houses, not knowing if they would come or not.
Recently, many households find this behavior annoying, so in my neighborhood association, it has changed to a system where you put origami on your front door to signal "visits allowed" or "visits not allowed."
A long-standing custom is changing with the times.

When I was a child, my father would bring home a bamboo branch from somewhere, and I would decorate it with my younger sister and cousins, and write wishes on tanzaku strips.

Wishes
Wishes that I might be able to achieve if I work hard, or rather, wishes to tell myself to do my best.
Since I have experienced that "writing it on note makes it come true," I feel like my wish might come true if I write it here.
Besides the tanzaku, there is one more thing. I will write it down to discipline myself.
"May I continue my sign language studies"

Wishes to God
These are wishes that no matter how hard I try, I cannot control.
But I cannot help but wish for them.
My daughter's health deteriorated a year ago, and it has stabilized since around autumn.
Although there are ups and downs, she has been able to continue working.
I hope her health stays stable like this forever.
I suppose I have no choice but to pray to God for this.

I participated in Kotobato-san's project.
They say they will open the time capsule (open the article) in one year to see if my wish has come true.
I hope that in a year, I will still be working as I am now, reading books every day, occasionally working as a shopkeeper at a shared bookstore, and enjoying my weekends.

Kotobato-san, thank you for the fun project.

#Tanabata Time Capsule