Chicken is the traditional bird for feasting
in Japan during Christmas, and it is no
surprise that many people “flock” to
Kentucky Fried Chicken to sate their
appetites then. Most homes don’t have a
large enough oven anyway; kitchens here
commonly have a stove that is comprised of
2-3 burners and a small drawer where you can
grill fish. Christmas music and decorations
abound, though, so most Americans can still
feel like home when they go shopping. We did
like most Japanese and set up a tree and had
Santa come (mostly for my son Kento, who
laid out milk and chocolates to fatten up
the old elf). Christmas Eve dinner for us,
however, was sushi so Christmas Day dinner
had to include some chicken. I whipped up a
chicken parmesan meal to fulfill that
tradition, and we also celebrated with a
chocolate Christmas cake (another Japanese
notable for this time of year).
Chicken is the traditional bird for feasting
in Japan during Christmas, and it is no
surprise that many people “flock” to
Kentucky Fried Chicken to sate their
appetites then. Most homes don’t have a
large enough oven anyway; kitchens here
commonly have a stove that is comprised of
2-3 burners and a small drawer where you can
grill fish. Christmas music and decorations
abound, though, so most Americans can still
feel like home when they go shopping. We did
like most Japanese and set up a tree and had
Santa come (mostly for my son Kento, who
laid out milk and chocolates to fatten up
the old elf). Christmas Eve dinner for us,
however, was sushi so Christmas Day dinner
had to include some chicken. I whipped up a
chicken parmesan meal to fulfill that
tradition, and we also celebrated with a
chocolate Christmas cake (another Japanese
notable for this time of year).
A couple of days later, Kento and my wife
left Obihiro city via train for Sapporo to
visit my in-laws, leaving me to do some much
needed schoolwork until the thirtieth at
which time I followed. New Year’s Eve was
spent as most Japanese families do, with a
big meal and watching a songfest on TV until
the midnight bells chimed. Many families
here have elaborate end-of-year meals with
tons of holiday foods (osechi ryori)
prepared laboriously by Moms (who also end
up cleaning the home from top to bottom as
well). They are lots of little dishes
arranged carefully in lacquered wood trays
or boxes, and if you buy them it can mean
paying as much as US$400. Many of these
little treats means a gourmet’s delight
despite the hard work, and if Mom can make
all this, it will last for several days,
thus freeing her up for a good rest. Our
meal wasn’t traditional. Instead, we had our
own typical meal where everyone gets to make
handmade sushi, and there were plenty of
other store-bought stomach-fillers like
smoked ham and fish, salad, and cheeses.
New Year’s time is a
bigger holiday event in Japan than
Christmas. Many shops and offices close down
for a few days to a week, leaving a special
decoration on or near their front doors as a
reminder of good luck for the coming year.
Some are bamboo stalks with pine tree
branches (the kadomatsu), and others involve
a shimekazari hanging (a sacred rope with
folded paper strips, in many designs) to
ward off evil. Employees celebrate the end
of the year with dinner parties, and then in
early January they celebrate the upcoming
year with even more parties. Homes also hang
decorations like the shimekazari, but in
addition they may have other things on
counter tops and entryways. These usually
include a kagamimochi, which is a
snowman-like pile of pounded cooked rice
cakes with a small orange (mikan) on top.
Like some people, Yoshie’s parents also have
a special flower arrangement that Yoshie
herself sets up, courtesy of her 7 years of
ikebana training.
On New Year’s Eve or Day,
many people make a pilgrimage to a local
shrine to toss a coin to the gods and make a
wish for good luck in the coming year. The
bell chimes 108 times at midnight to ring
out and stir away the 108 sins we mortals
are afflicted with. We waited until after we
had returned to Obihiro to visit the shrine.
Lots of people were there, some in kimonos,
to pay their respects. Like many, we also
bought a replacement good luck charm which
we keep hanging in our car, and Yoshie &
Kento also chipped in a few yen to buy a
good luck horoscope. When that is read, to
make it come true, one ties it to a tree or
string on the shrine grounds, and later the
priests burn them in some kind of ritual.
Sort of like blowing out candles on a
birthday cake.
Back to New Year’s Day, we went to one of
Yoshie’s aunt’s to gorge ourselves for a
long noontime meal that stretched into
mid-afternoon. Fifteen people were there,
but Kento was the only one under 21. One
uncle gave him a remote-controlled car, and
since the new batteries needed a 3-hour
charge, and he was impatient, he spent a few
hours crashing into furniture and walls
between 10-minute charges. The lunch
consisted of finger foods, a real potluck of
stuff sweet, sour, salty, and overflowing
with soy sauce. Beer flowed copiously, too,
so most people took taxis or buses home. As
was tradition, Kento got special envelopes
from the aunts and uncles that contained
money (otoshidama) as a New Year’s present.
We handed out the same to people whose kids
or grandkids hadn’t shown up
We stayed in Sapporo
until Saturday the third, then hopped a
train back to Obihiro to allow ourselves a
day to recuperate, do laundry, and restock
the cupboards and fridge. I started work
that next Monday, and Kento began a 5-day
intensive ice skating course. Before I went
to Sapporo, I’d left belated presents from
my sister for Kento under our Christmas
tree, and when he saw them as he walked in
the door, he was so bowled over that he fell
backward onto the sofa.
Our mail had arrived
while we were gone. That included the
traditional stack of New Year’s cards (nengajo).
People send these specially designed
postcards to friends and family and
practically anyone they want to remain in
contact with, even if it’s been decades
since they’ve seen them. The cards usually
say Happy New Year in English or Japanese,
plus some words in Japanese wishing people
well, leaving a tiny space for writing a
personalized note. They also usually have a
decoration of one of the signs of the
Chinese zodiac, so this year the theme was
the Year of the Ox, and as a result most
cards had pictures of bulls on them. Luckily
for us, we have only about 40-50 people with
whom we remain in touch. Nengajo are
delivered on January first, so Post Office
workers have no rest then. As usual, we
discovered a few cards from people we had
not sent to, so we were obligated (so says
my wife) to dash off reply cards that day,
so she had no rest that day, either
