Christmas in Japan

Japan is not a Christian country; Christians make up a very small percentage of the population. You’ve heard complaints about how commercialized Christmas is here in the US – multiply that by infinity and you’ll have some appreciation of the Holiday in Japan.

It is totally commercialized and means not much more than a sale season at the stores. Everywhere you go downtown, in the shopping districts, you will see Christmas decorations and hear endless Christmas music. Santas will be seen here and there, and oh boy, does a Japanese Santa look Different than he does here!

That sales season lasts about two weeks, but it all disappears on Christmas Day – all of the decorations are gone by the night of Christmas. The real end of the year Holiday, and much, much more important than any imported holiday is New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day. Stores close on New Year’s Day and the primary focus is on Family and the New Year.

As an imported Holiday, there is of course much celebration and lots of parties to go to – my English students Always had a party for the classes, and, as a teacher, a very high status in Japan, I always got presents and drinks bought and food prepared for me. Christmas in Japan is heavily commercialized, true, but the end of the year is significant in other ways too, and Christmas in Japan is a rather special time.

Christmas Day and Christmas Eve are just regular work days in Japan, and I have worked many a Christmas Day, both there and here too.

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Christmas this year is on Tuesday, and I think I will be taking a trip out to the Columbia Gorge on Wednesday or Thursday with Monacita and a couple of other people – we discussed it today. I’m charging the batteries for my cameras to get ready; it’s been so long since I used the one camera that it’s batteries were dead as were the two other sets in the case.

It has been raining steadily all day and it looks to continue past Christmas, but it doesn’t look all that cold; there may not be any frozen waterfalls to see this time.

The Gorge is beautiful all the time, no matter what the weather is like, and next week, there will be some new pictures to take and post here.

Stay tuned please.

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