A Little Piece of Heaven

Since coming to Japan, Christmas has always been the holiday that gets me the most bummed out about being away from home and my family. If you sift through my previous posts on or around Christmas you'll see what I mean. We have to work on Christmas here, which is demoralizing enough. But while Japan has embraced the holiday as an advertising scheme, and the occasional 'illumination' can be found outside of major shopping districts, it's pretty much a total sham. Fortunately the New Years holiday follows shortly after Christmas, and the Japanese do New Years right.

So now that we no longer live in a shoe box, and actually have a bit of extra room, I have the power to bring a little Christmas into our house. The world outside may be full of Colonel Sanders in a Santa suit and misguided wishes for a 'Marry Christmas,' but now, here, our seldom used tatami room is being transformed into Christmas central!!

Obviously the centerpiece to any festive home is a Christmas tree. They don't do 'real' Christmas trees here, so it was plastic from the get go. And it wouldn't be freakin Japan if I couldn't get us a nice 'Set Tree.' If you've eaten in Japan you know how they love their sets. I didn't realize the fetish applied to bastardized western holidays as well. So what does a 'set tree' include?



Of course I'll indulge. I pried open the box to find this assortment: a 180cm tree in three parts, a box of colored lights, and stand, and a mangled roll of every conceivable tacky Christmas tree ornament you can think of: plastic pine cones, plastic ball ornaments, ornaments shaped like presents, bows, some tinsel-like crap, plastic pine cones, a bell with a bow for the top of the tree (whatever), and a red doily thing to hide the unsightly stand under the tree.



For the time being I just put up the lights and doily thing, because the frame is pretty ugly. I don't want to blow my Christmas wad all at once, so I have to pace myself, and also save some decorating for my Grinch wife who wouldn't share in my jubilation tonight.

The final product (though it's only the beginning, I assure you), including a string of white Christmas lights I picked up with the tree:



The irony is not lost on me that I am turning the most Japanese room in our house into a shrine to a Western holiday. I think the atmosphere will be cool, and I look forward to spending many an our underneath the blinking lights and the tacky, plastic tree.

Updates on the conversion to follow.