Christmas Lights - 12/06

Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas, as it's not a particularly a Shinto, Buddhist thing. New Year's is the major holiday and with it comes the family gatherings, special meals and celebrations.

Christmas Eve is a date night for young couples and the tradition on Christmas day is to have a Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner. The Colonel must be a good marketer because it's not like THAT dates back to the Meiji period.

The stores do decorate and play cheesy Christmas music. We bought a small artificial tree to brighten our December, and put it in the front window. Shortly afterwards, a neighbor across the street put up Christmas lights. Then the neighbor on the other side did too. Gee, that was nice. When the third neighbor put up lights, I was shamed into going out and buying our own. Our road is quite cheery.

Then I noticed that the Christmas lights are an anomaly in our development. No one else on the other streets had them.

What great neighbors!