Living in a multicultural family, I want our son to whenever possible experience the cultures that both of his parent’s grew up in. I do my best to highlight Swedish traditions in our home, and when we visit Sweden he gets plenty of that. But equally important to me is to value the Japanese cultural heritage that I have also come to love and cherish.
A big milestone in a child’s life in Japan is the shichi-go-san (seven-five-three) celebration, a Japanese rite of passage when a family goes to a shrine in November to celebrate their child’s health and well being. The occasion is named after the age when children are celebrated like this, boys normally at five and sometimes three years old and girls at three and seven years old. We had prepared for this since summer since summer, booking a photographer and kimono rental for our son as well as dressing help for my wife and I. I was for the first time wearing the kimono I got from my father-in-law when my wife-to-be and I got married. His mother-in-law had sewn this kimono for him, and when I received it I felt grateful beyond words and have been longing to wear it ever since. My wife wore her own kimono and our son got to choose all by himself what kimono to wear.
It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and the temperature just right for a few hours in a difficult to walk in kimono. After a short ceremony in the shrine our son had the time of his life roaming around the grounds, playing with the photographer who was doing great work getting photos of our son and his parents.
After the photo shoot, we had arranged a jinrikisha to enjoy the short trip to the restaurant where we had lunch. It was a french restaurant in a Japanese garden and that is where my photo shoot began. I was really pleasantly surprised by my son’s willingness to be photographed. He had already had one photographer to interact with and now comes dad, wanting to do it all again from the beginning, asking him to pose for more photos – that would be reason enough for any toddler to protest but he was happy to oblige (so when asking to buy a super hero mask from a stand outside the shrine, of course we indulged him).
I was so happy to have had the chance to take photos of my handsome son and amazingly beautiful wife. This was such a happy day, one that I already treasure as among the happiest days of my life.
Below is a link to the post from two years ago, when our son was 3 years old.