Holidays in Japan - Christmas

January 05, 2017

Honestly, blogging is a lot more challenging than I anticipated. Being open and honest about living in Japan sometimes makes me feel like I might offend someone or say the wrong thing. I get worried about how people will receive what I have to say. With the start of the New Year I am determined to blog more often and put that fear behind me. This year the holidays looked a lot different for Sean and I. We added a little addition to our family and moved across the globe to Japan. We tried our best to embrace Japanese traditions concerning the holidays and had a lot of fun along the way. In this blog I’m going to talk about our experience celebrating Christmas in Japan.

OK so I feel like I have to give some background before explaining what we actually did on Christmas. Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan. However, the 23^rd is the Emperor’s birthday and observed as a national holiday. Although Christmas is not a national holiday many people celebrate it in a commercial way by giving gifts. If you’re a child you can expect to get a couple gifts from family. With only about 1% of Japanese people claiming to be Christians, Christmas is generally not observed as a religious holiday. It is known as a time to spread joy and happiness. The other thing that was very interesting to learn is Christmas is traditionally celebrated as a couple’s holiday in Japan, specifically Christmas Eve. In a similar way to the U.S. celebrating Valentine’s Day, Japan celebrates lovers on Christmas. That means that every fancy restaurant is booked well in advance. Other than that, the days leading up to Christmas felt very similar. Everywhere we went there were Christmas lights, Christmas music and festive decorations.

One Japanese tradition we enjoyed was buying and eating a Christmas cake! A sponge cake covered in whipped frosting with fruit on top, specifically strawberries. This is a very old Christmas tradition and it has a pretty interesting origin. I attached a link below if you want to read more about Christmas cake. Christmas cake is a big deal and family gatherings generally center around eating cake, not dinner. You can find a picture of a full Christmas cake and a slice in the emoji keyboard on your phone.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/16/369830094/a-christmas-cake-that-isn-t-about-christmas-at-all

Our Christmas cake! (After candles were in it)

KFC/ fried chicken is a very popular meal for Christmas in Japan. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s a real thing. It started as a marketing campaign and took off. One story is that a group of foreigners were looking for Turkey (almost impossible to find, you have to pre order from meat shops) and couldn’t find it. So they went for the next best thing, fried chicken. The company seen it as an opportunity and started marketing Christmas chicken and got very popular. People even order their chicken ahead of time so that they don’t have to wait in the long lines! We didn’t wait in line or pre order. I went to the grocery store and bought chicken though.

On Christmas Eve we celebrated by having our Christmas cake and a steak dinner. Cake and Steak! We opened gifts around our little tree as a family of three. It was Lucy’s first Christmas, a precious time that I will never forget. On Christmas we went to church and had a wonderful service. After church there was a Christmas program. We were put on the program schedule to sing a song. We sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. It wasn’t as intimidating as it sounds, Christian churches are very small here. Our church has an average of 12 people but had a lot more on Christmas :) We sang, we ate, we laughed and also had more Christmas cake! It was really a great Christmas with our new church family.

To be vulnerable I have to mention how hard the holidays were away from family. The cards, phone calls, videos, packages and goodies loved ones sent around Christmas were a bit heart wrenching (thank you). If you know me you know I adore my family and Christmas is my favorite. It wasn’t easy for us to be so far away but it in many ways it was also a blessing. This adventure of moving and living in Japan has taught me so much. This Christmas season I learned that I always have a desire for things I don’t have. Thinking the grass is always greener is a real reality for me. I wanted to be busy, to have a million places to be, food to make, presents to wrap, lights to see, a big tree to decorate and on and on. But when I really think about years past I can remember wanting to slow down, wishing I didn’t have to work, wanting to sip hot chocolate and watch a Christmas movie all snug. And this year in Japan that is just what we did. I am not saying that I don’t love Christmas in NY. I am simply pointing out that life changes. Things aren’t always going to be the same. I am learning that I need to be thankful for the moment I am in, for the stage of life that is my present reality. I want to enjoy the world around me and not let bitterness in to wish it away. To sum it up, our Japan Christmas was wonderfully different! Miss you all.