独りぼっちのChristmas

So it's Christmas Eve. In Japan, that means a number of things:

- a romantic date (a la Valentine's Day back home)

- fried chicken (no lie - there was a line 30 people long at KFC tonight!)

- strawberries (what would Christmas Cake be without fresh strawberries?)

- an extremely limited set of Xmas songs playing in stores (after hearing three different renditions of "Rudolph" consecutively (in one store!!), I was REFRESHED to hear "Jingle Bells")

- enormous plastic Pokemon boots being sold at supermarkets, presumably full of candy and crap plastic toys (reminds me of prepackaged Easter baskets back home)

So although the specifics may be a bit different from what we have back home, I don't think anything differs so substantially from what Christmas has become in America.

I spent a quiet evening home alone (most of my friends are gone for break) and threw together what I could for a Christmas Eve dinner. Roast pork was the main entree, along with some mashed potatoes I made from scratch and a melange of sauteed root vegetables and peppers. I need to get some decent dishes one of these days so I can do a better job with the presentation, being that I don't actually own, for example, a plate.

I know the people who read my blog are all over the religious spectrum: Buddhist, Shinto, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, atheist, Sukyo Mahikari, and probably a few others in there. So I'll wish you all a merry Christmas, and if for some reason you take offense at that, just remember: perhaps we can't all agree on our concepts of god and humanity, life after death, or sin and redemption. But fried chicken and Pokemon are a part of all of us.