Christmas in Japan

In general, Christmas is no big deal here. Of course, they have tons of Christmas decorations and light ups everywhere. Sometimes even more than what we have back home, which is weird, because they don't actually celebrate it. Families with young children might buy some presents for the kids, but once they reach junior high school, it's over. Same applies to birthday in most families. Couples might go on a special Christmas date, and friends might organize Christmas parties, not to feel lonely if there's no boyfriend or girlfriend around. Twisted.

Also, we are supposed to save energy because of the March disaster, remember?? Well, with this much light up and wasting electricity, I wonder what their idea of saving energy is.  Just look up "Nabana no sato".Here's the link: http://www.esankei.com/ryokou/sp/nabana.html .  It's in Mie prefecture, not so far from here. It's a gorgeous and unbelievably huge light art creation, but c'mon, do we really need this, while some people in the North/East are still struggling to get back to their normal lives? They used 5800000　LED lights to do the Mount Fuji thing only....Not that I don't want to go and see it at least once in my life. However, this year, due to that disaster, we could be a bit more modest...shouldn't we?

Christmas decorations in Umeda, Osaka

I tried to make our Christmas as European as possible. My Mom had sent us chocolate ornaments and the famous Hungarian "szaloncukor", which in mirror translation would be "parlour candy", as in old times the Christmas tree used to be displayed in the parlour, so guests would be able to admire it when entering the house.They come in all kinds of flavours and beautiful, stylish wrapping. If you happen to travel to Hungary in winter, you definitely should try them. 

I spent about 2 hours on skype on Christmas Eve, talking to my parents, opening presents. In my family, we open the presents in the evening of the 24th. Some families do it on the 25th. So I neatly placed the presents we got from my parents under the tree. We did "kampai" (the Japanese equivalent of "cheers") with some "umeshu" plum liquor and ate a Christmas cake I did from ready made materials in about 15 minutes. I refuse to spend too much time in the kitchen during winter season, due to the extremely poor insulation of Japanese homes. It's freakin' cold!!
But yeah, it was  a nice Christmas, despite the fact that I was away from home. Never happened at Christmas before...LOL.. It was really busy, especially buying and sending tons of presents back home to friends and family.  But hey, I totally enjoyed it! :)

The cake, our tree, the candies, the presents and the plum drinks :)

I don't have any Japanese style New Year's decoration in my home, but I've seen a few really nice ones displayed in shop windows. Next year is going to be the year of the dragon, so obviously, most of the decorations include dragons! 

By the way, how do you like my new visitor counter little globe on the right? I found it on another blog, tracked it down, and installed on my page too. Pretty cool, huh? Now you'll be able to see, how many visitors I have, and from which part of the world!! I could check it in my stats since I started this blog, but the info wasn't visible on the blog.

600 Page Views

Today I checked my blog and it has just reached 600 page views!!! Wow! 

Thanks guys! Thanks to all of you who have read it at least once! Tons of thanks to my regular readers! 

Special thanks to those who bothered to comment!

Today, at least one more post is coming up...after I did the laundry...soooo STAY TUNED!

Have a Merry Little Christmas...♪

Well, it's here again! The most beautiful and emotional celebration of the year. Having only a plastic tree, unfortunately, this year without the magical scent of Blue Spruce or Nordmann Pine... 

But I made wonderful soft gingerbread cookies. 

Anyway, I don't have much time to write today or tomorrow, but I promise that I'll update the blog before New Year's and, in 2O12 I'll write more often. I have tons of stories to share with you, it's just hard to find the time to type them.

So, once more, I wish you all a Wonderful and Happy Christmas, hoping that you can celebrate it together with your loved ones.

Santa comes to Japan

Today is the 6th of December! Which means that Santa comes!!! Yes people, in Hungary, Germany, and maybe a few other countries, Santa comes on Saint Nicholas Day, and not Christmas! We clean and prepare our shoes, so Santa can put presents into them. The custom is that Santa brings the presents either in the evening of the 5th or morning of the 6th of December.

 I decided for the sake of our future family, that we are going to keep this custom alive even in Japan! So, I got these plastic boots, which look real cute and are sold for Christmas, got some European Santa shaped chocolate, and both of us bought a little present for one another. :)

Cute, aren't they? Of course the blue is mine :)

Santa shaped American chocolate. We also had
some European Kinder buenos.

Santa from Mom and Dad :) Kinder, Milka, Haribo, etc...all the delicious European stuff!!!

Also, with perfect timing, Mom's Santa arrived by post this evening too! Wow, tonns of delicious chocolate! And Christmas candy that we often give on this day, and also use for decorating the Christmas tree. Yummiiiiiiieeee.

 

I got this  chocolate advent calendar a few weeks ago. You can buy them in most import food selling supermarkets for about 600-800 yen. I hope I'll be able to make this Christmas like the one  at home. This is going to be the first ever Christmas that will be only the two of us, and I'll stay in Japan. Of course, it's going to be a bit lonely without family, but hey, we have skype :) and, as you can see, decoration and stuff for celebration you can find here as well. The meaning of Christmas here is not deep at all, but you can make it deep in your own heart. So why bother about how, or whether or not other people celebrate it ;)