Christmas in Japan has a somewhat ambivalent feel about it. The main celebrations here are reserved for 正月, the period over the New Year where everything in the country comes to a shuddering halt and they even turn off the electricity in the university (though is most likely due to a 20% rise in electricity prices earlier this autumn. Thank you Fukushima). Christmas by contrast is a foreign import. While children will receive presents from Santa, and myself and Sanae will exchange gifts (I hope), gift giving doesn't go beyond the immediate family. And it is done pretty quickly too. Tomorrow is not a holiday so Sanae and myself will be in work for 8:00am while Cian, who is on winter holidays, will nevertheless have to be in the children's day care centre at the same time as there is nowhere else to put the boy (though when he gets in one of his stroppy moods, the orphanage is always a tempting option: "No, I swear, we found him by the side of the road"). There will be no turkey, Christmas pudding, Christmas crackers, selection boxes, mulled wine, hot whiskey, Uncle Tiernan slumped in a drowsy stupor in front of the sitting room fire, etc.
Instead Japan has created its own off kilter traditions to mark the day. Christmas Eve for instance, is a night for 'lovers' (though Sanae seems pretty resolute in ignoring that particular custom. Maybe I should serve a few glasses of hot whiskey...). Christmas dinner is often celebrated with a big feed of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Christmas cake consists of this god awful confectionary of sponge cake strawberries, and enough whipped cream to float a cow.
Thankfully here in Teach Gaynor-Takahashi we eschew the worst of these cholesterol enhanced delights though there are a couple of things I could think of to do tonight with the whipped cream...
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