For the dearest granddaughter まご娘のために

お正月に実家に遊びに来た姪のために、父が作ったおもちゃです。父は小さい子供が大好きで、子供と遊ぶ天才と言ってもいいくらい。近所の小さい子にも人気です。姪っ子（父にとっては初孫）に会えるのは、盆と正月くらいなので、姪と何をして遊ぶかということを常に考えて何ヶ月も過ごしているのでしょう。「お正月に遊びにきた時に使えるから」と、父はカレンダーの写真を、人の形に毎月切り抜いて取っておいたんだとか。うーん、さすが、私だったらそんなこと思いつかずに捨てちゃうけどなぁ。案の定、姪は大喜びでその写真に割り箸を貼り付けて、庭に作ったかまくらのデコレーションに使ったそうです。今年の大雪で、実家の庭には大人が４人ほど入れる巨大なかまくらが作ってありました。中には座る場所も神棚もあって、人形が飾ってあったり、蝋燭をともす場所が作ってあったり、かなりの力作でした。たった１人の小学生を喜ばせるために、大人が３人がかりで（私の父と兄達で）作ったそうです。少子高齢化は私の家にも訪れているのでした。
These are my niece's paper dolls, made by my father. He really loves kids and becomes very good friends with kids. He is popular among little kids in his neighborhood. My dad always wants to see his granddaughter, Mizuki, thinking what he would do with her. So does Mizuki, she is always looking forward to play with her grandfather. Mizuki visits my parents only on obon and a new year, so these are the only chance he can play with her. I have no idea how much my dad looks forward to it. For some month, he had been cutting pictures of women out of old calender paper to give her for the new-year visit, because little girls love pictures of beautiful ladies and he thought Mizuki would be happy to play with them. ( And he was right.) She was so glad to get them, put chopsticks on the other side of the paper and stubbed them in kamakura―an igloo like snow hut. In Nagano they had heavy snow this winter. My father and my brothers made a big kamakura in the garden, in which 4 adults fit, and it had some alters and ledges to put some candles. I suppose it took some hours to make it. Three adults did it just to please one kid. My family is a microcosm of Japanese society, aging with few children.