Apparently I dated a much more Americanized girl than you did, Sanosuke. ;)

But actually, I think that when phrasing things that one wants to do, it's better to put them as a suggestion of "Shall we do X" rather than "Let's do X." That way, an explanation may be made if there is an issue with the suggestion.

Exactly, but when Person#1 feels an obligation to Person#2, Person#2's wish will be heeded. So I was just suggesting caution in what you say here -- do a little research ahead of time and figure out if the things you want to do can be done in Tokyo at that time of year at a reasonable expense. And pad the wishes: the direct translation of "I want to go to X" would be incredibly brusque in Japanese. "Well, it's nothing important really, but we were thinking of going to see Kabuki because I heard the one-act seats aren't too expensive. I'm sure you've been there many times already though, so we'll just go by ourselves..."

...which sounds like fun when you're a guy, and it certainly can be, but if you take everything she says at face value ("Italian restaurant? Well, actually I'm allergic to pasta, but of course I'd love to go if you want to..."), you'll soon be dumped as an insensitive jerk who doesn't care about her. But don't worry: if you manage to walk the tightrope for a while and she figures she's got her claws in your deep enough, she'll eventually start to tell you exactly what she wants to do :p

Nonsense. I've been married five years with a Japanese girl who always lets me do exactly what I want to do.

Which reminds me... I need to ask her to remind me what I want to do this weekend.

I understand where you are coming from but I think that you don't understand the reality of the situation? Judging from the fact that the op had to make a mental note of taking shoes off before going inside a Japanese person's house, I'm going to guess that the op is not very good with Japanese and communication will go mostly through the son who will translate to the parents. If the op is not good at teineigo and similar structures, mannerisms like itadakimasu, gochisousamadeshita [well, if op doesn't know to take shoes off..], I'm not so sure why you concentrate on syntax and word choice so much. It's unavoidable for things to be lost in translation.

If you write in Japanese or English what you are suggesting, it will be interpreted as "larsvance wants to see Kabuki and we want to go by ourselves."

Indeed, even if larsvance wants the host family or the son to go with larsvance, they will think they are not welcome. What if larsvance wants them to go to kabuki with them and the host family wants to go too? What if the Japanese family hasn't gone to the kabuki theatre before? Then they feel like they're not cultural and that they don't appreciate the Japanese culture enough. The opportunity is lost now since the host family will act as if they don't want to go and larsvance will be ignorant to this.

But do I think that your suggestion is bad? I think it's a step in the right direction but mistakes and misunderstandings are just going to happen. You may try to prevent them, but you may make them worse too. Sometimes being direct is even best.

I just would like to comment on the spot-on insight through imagery evidenced in the above sentence.

Japanese people seem to be most appreciative of gifts that are from or represent your home area.

These include:

coffee table books with lots of photos and few words about your city or state

products that are manufactured in your area. Back when I was still a college professor, I was supposed to accompany a group of students to their study abroad site, hand them over to the Japanese staff, and present gifts to the staff. For the men, I chose Pendleton neck scarves, which were still made in Oregon/Washington at the time. They were delighted, as were the women, who received handmade shawls from the Oregon Country Fair.

Young Japanese people love T-shirts and sweatshirts with English slogans, whether they can understand them or not. (After you've been in Japan a while, you'll see that people not only wear shirts with slogans that they don't understand but that the people who make the T-shirts don't understand the slogans either.) If your Japanese "son" has siblings, bring them T-shirts with the name of your city or state or a local college.