Right after returning from my leave period I needed to finish a project I had been working on for about a month. Every year American and Japanese commands meet and exchange gifts as a goodwill gesture. Since I serve on board a destroyer our Japanese counterpart is also a destroyer. My assigned task as the George Ensign (newest Ensign) was to order a large Christmas wreath for the exchange.
At first glance, this did not seem like a difficult proposition but it ended up being a real pain. The funding for this wreath needed to come from the wardroom. So I needed to talk with the wardroom treasurer. There is a certain set amount we are able to spend on gifts to foreign nations. I got both those issues resolved and went to order the wreath from the Navy Exchange. Once there a new problem arose. I was unable to provide an exact date for when I would need the wreath prepared. I ended up making a guess, luckily it turned out to be a fairly good guess.
It ended up being quite a large wreath, requiring two people to get it up the brow. It was windy and I wasn't risking it getting blown overboard. We put it in the wardroom and left a trail of needles and red berries along the way. The crew thought that was funny until they had to clean it up.
The day of the ceremony, I was asked to present the wreath to the Japanese Captain. As soon as my Captain was done with all the formalities of the occasion, the delegation stepped off the brow and I presented the wreath to them. Since I had been in the wardroom with the wreath for most of the event, this was the first time I noticed their gift to us. The Japanese Captain gave us two Kadomatsu. I would rather not describe the plants, I wouldn't do them justice. They are certainly unique and they have a deep rooted history.
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