Merry Christmas!!
I hope the holidays are going great for you and you're able to spend some quality time with family. Here we have just put Myla to bed and are getting ready to put the presents under the tree and some cookies (or other sweets) out for Santa so he will be good to us this year :)
You may be wondering if they celebrate Christmas here and the answer is yes. Christmas here though is very detached from God. Christmas means presents and reindeer and Santa, but not much more. We have been told that many Japanese people don't believe in any thing, any God, or if they do most people are not Christian.
The Japanese culture, at least from what I have seen so far, is a gifting culture. Many fans give gifts to players after the games here (I have been lucky enough to be on the recieving end a few times - please see the next post about what fans gave us for Christmas), and I think it is a common thing to give a gift and not just for Christmas. Here though the Christmas music started on the 1st of November. We practice in a public facility. The arena we use has three courts on it and we only practice on one of them. During practice, or probably the whole day, they have music playing softly through the speakers and since November 1st the Christmas tunes have been going steady. Hard to have a bad day with the Christmas songs to brighten the day.
I would have to say though that it isn't quite as big here as it is in the states. Many stores carry Christmas stuff, but it will be only one tiny section in a store rather than a whole area devoted to it. And we have been able to find some houses with Christmas lights on them, but they are quite scattered and few and far between. We did make it in to Tokyo about 2 weeks ago though to see two different mall's Christmas lights (Roppongi Hills & Tokyo Midtown) - it was pretty cool!
This is the first time in 4 years though that I have been off the 24th and 25th and we are fully enjoying spending these two days together. Hope all is well where you are and Merry Christmas.
I hope the holidays are going great for you and you're able to spend some quality time with family. Here we have just put Myla to bed and are getting ready to put the presents under the tree and some cookies (or other sweets) out for Santa so he will be good to us this year :)
You may be wondering if they celebrate Christmas here and the answer is yes. Christmas here though is very detached from God. Christmas means presents and reindeer and Santa, but not much more. We have been told that many Japanese people don't believe in any thing, any God, or if they do most people are not Christian.
The Japanese culture, at least from what I have seen so far, is a gifting culture. Many fans give gifts to players after the games here (I have been lucky enough to be on the recieving end a few times - please see the next post about what fans gave us for Christmas), and I think it is a common thing to give a gift and not just for Christmas. Here though the Christmas music started on the 1st of November. We practice in a public facility. The arena we use has three courts on it and we only practice on one of them. During practice, or probably the whole day, they have music playing softly through the speakers and since November 1st the Christmas tunes have been going steady. Hard to have a bad day with the Christmas songs to brighten the day.
I would have to say though that it isn't quite as big here as it is in the states. Many stores carry Christmas stuff, but it will be only one tiny section in a store rather than a whole area devoted to it. And we have been able to find some houses with Christmas lights on them, but they are quite scattered and few and far between. We did make it in to Tokyo about 2 weeks ago though to see two different mall's Christmas lights (Roppongi Hills & Tokyo Midtown) - it was pretty cool!
This is the first time in 4 years though that I have been off the 24th and 25th and we are fully enjoying spending these two days together. Hope all is well where you are and Merry Christmas.
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