Twas My First Christmas Alone...

Here, I wrote this just for you!

Twas my first Christmas alone and all through Japan
  Not a holiday thing was going according to plan.
No lights were strung on apartments with care,
No carols were sung nor hitting my ear.

The children were nestled all snug on the tatamis,
But no parents played Santa, not even their mommies!
Japan dressed in sumo, or even in kimono,
Has yet to discover the absurd Christmas card photo.

Christmas in the corner at work!

Christmas 2010 was my first Christmas out of the States, and in Japan.  It was the worst Christmas I've ever had...for most of the day.

Since Japan isn't that into celebrating Christmas (see amazing poem above), at least not in the overzealous way that my American self is accustomed to, everything seemed so lackluster.  There were no lights, no Santas cheerfully staring from windows, and it was cold and rainy. Hi, I'm used to bright Christmases, the smell of a fire, Kenny G blowing out some of his favorite tunes on the Sax, and getting the creeps from a certain stuffed Santa that's been in the family for years.  He's got a sketchy look in his eye if you ask me. 

This was the first year I realized how effective Christmas music is.  I believe we are all brainwashed into feeling fuzzy when Christmas music comes on.  I mean, you don't sit around listening to Silent Night in February.  You associate that music deeply, and I found that the only time I ever felt like it was Christmas (in a good way) was when a friend and I went to the shopping district Osu and all the stores were playing carols.  Osu is a lot like Ameri-mura in Osaka.  Its a grid of tons of vintage, boutique and specialty stores.
We strolled around a few days before Christmas, looking for presents and exploring while I happily and against my will hummed along. 

Kid's class area at school.

The week of Christmas in the kids' classes, I did Christmas crafts.  We made construction paper snowmen rejoicing with stick arms in a chalk-snow blizzard.

I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas which was a HUGE bummer, but at the same time without any visual cues or nagging from my mom, I didn't even realize it was Christmas.  Plus and bonus.

I worked until about 8:30p on Christmas Eve, and then headed to the local Izakaya with Carrie for a few high balls.  She was pretty bummed out as well about the Christmas tradgety.  We made an important decision right then over the flowing booze (isn't that how so many important decisions are made?). We decided that Christmas is what you make it and we were going to make it as awesome as possible.  We'd make dinner, have a gift exchange and say "fuck you" to the gloomy attitudes we were trying to shake.

After a brutal day at work where I cursed Mr. Cringle for ever introducing myself to him, I texted Carrie and said I was going to take a nap.  After sleeping for 3 hours, I debated telling Christmas we had a good run, but this year we were going to have to go our separate ways.  It was freezing outside anyways.  My mat was cozy.  Sorta.  After telling myself you can't sleep through Christmas, I got up and headed to the store.  I got enough stuff to make delicious mashed potatoes and a few other gems.  I spent the next hour in the kitchen frying onions for the green been casserole and hand mashing my potato friends with a fork.  Trying to make Western foods with "wannabe" ingredients is sort of trying.  Like sour cream for instance- it's hard almost like butter and SOUR.  And it's really hard to find good cheese in Asia.  But I did the best I could, and was on my way to Christmas dinner- Nippon style!

nom nom nom

I stepped into Carries apartment to a small makeshift Christmas tree (she bought me one, too!) with some decorations, Christmas music, candles and some Christmas chicken and corn to add to our dinner.  Her boyfriend is Chinese, and also away from the family this year, contributed TsingTao beer for the festivities.  He had never had mashed potatoes or green bean casserole, so it was interesting to get his take on them (WIN!) After stuffing ourselves we decided to watch a Christmas movie and bake peanut butter cookies. 

I sat there with my feet by the heater thinking about how lame I would have been if I had just slept through Christmas.  Now, I had this awesome story of my first Christmas in a different country, away from my friends and family.  I don't know why, but I kept thinking of the movie "Beaches" when they have this horribly poor Christmas and are singing carols trying to make the best of it.

I woke up the next morning and decided I need to apply my late-found Christmas attitude to my whole experience in Japan.  "So what if some things weren't working out like you thought, or this or that.  Shut up- you are in Japan.  You are living this whole weird experience and it's not going to be awesome until you make the effort." And that has made all the difference. 

Merry Christmas in katakana



 For the record, Japan celebrates Christmas in the sense that they play Christmas music in stores, buy presents for each other (usually one minor gift), and they know who Santa is.  Christmas is spent with your friends, much like our New Year's holiday in the US. And as it's not considered a national public holiday like in the States, most people do actually work on Christmas Eve and Christmas, but are off for a few days around New Year's.