Twas the night before Christmas...

The capitalist expression of the holiday spirit has been with us all month here in Japan, and you can see signs of it everywhere. Christmas sales are popular, and Santa-san has been advertising everything from the classic Coke to the ubiquitous Kurisimasu keeki to strange odds and ends on the infomercial channel.

Christmas display in front of the elevators in our building

However, it was only halfway through this afternoon, folding flyers after my second class in a row was cancelled, that I realized it was Christmas Eve. Really realized it. Our lobby loops the same nine songs or so, and only two of them are what remotely qualifies as Christmas tunes - overprocessed covers of songs that were beautiful for their simplicity once, but of course no longer.

Illumination in the park downtown

At break time, I popped out to the drugstore to go pick up my prescription, since my knee's been hurting again - this time I'm on two weeks' worth of painkillers and vitamins. Waiting for the traffic light at one of the main intersections, I couldn't help but giggle at the hosts on the giant TV at my back and their well-meaning "Mearii Kurisumasu!" On the way back, I figured meh, it's Christmas Eve, I'm going to splurge on something.

Hot lemon drink and a strawberry daifuku mochi - it has a real strawberry inside!

Yay, Christmas dinner! In addition to that I had some leftover homemade shepherd's pie, carrot sticks, and an apple, so it was pretty sumptuous all in all. After my break, I taught three classes (finally), and without thinking asked my last student what he was doing for Christmas. "I'm not Christian", was the reply, and I nearly facepalmed - here, Christmas is only serious if you're religious; otherwise it's pretty much date night. New Year's is the big family event, anyway.

Holiday cheer in the subway.

After getting out of the subway, I decided I needed to pick up a few things for Christmas breakfast tomorrow, since I'll be Skyping with my family, who will be enjoying their Christmas dinner. So that's how I found myself in a convenience store on Christmas eve, picking up frozen blueberries while a schmaltzy Xmas tune attempted to drown out the slightly more tuneful one from my mp3 player.

After that slightly surreal experience, I skipped across the street and found myself outside the little Indian place on the corner, so I went in and wished the owner and kitchen staff a merry Christmas and happy new year, and then made my way home. There was a Christmas card from Canada waiting for me, mochi for a snack, and now to bed. Merry Christmas, everyone, wherever you are.