Christmas and New Years is a busy time for most people. It’s a time to reflect on the past year and set new goals, but most importantly it’s a time to get together with friends and family and celebrate some of the traditions that define the holidays. Some traditions are new and some are old, but for me this time of year always reminds me of turkey dinners, Christmas decorations, eggnog (though I’ve never tried it), and countdown parties.

Picture perfect snowman next to Kakogawa Station

The magic ingredient is artificial snow

Celebrating Christmas is a relatively new phenomenon in Japan so many of the traditions observed are actually imported ideas and often tweaked to better fit Japanese taste and culture. I remember spending my first Christmas in Osaka and seeing tons and tons of advertisement for Kentucky Fried Chicken Christmas dinners. It seems that KFC fried chicken is THE defacto western Christmas food in Japan and has held this title for decades. Turkey never caught on in Japan, possibly because it doesn’t appeal to the Japanese palette but also partly due to the fact that most Japanese kitchens are not equipped with ovens large enough to prepare the bird. KFC kindly stepped in decades ago and used mega marketing bucks to promote the message that “KFC is what you eat at Christmas”. I asked some of my students about this that first year and they were completely surprised to find out that westerners don’t generally celebrate Christmas with fried chicken. Then I completely ruined their day by telling them that we don’t eat Christmas Cake either. I might as well have told them that Santa wasn’t real and burnt down the Christmas tree on my way out as well…

Sugary sweet !!

Another thing that made an impression on me is that while we generally think of Christmas as a family holiday and New Years as the time for partying with friends, this is the complete opposite in Japan. In Japan, New Years Day is a day for family, shrines, osechi and cleaning while Christmas is often spent with friends and is also a popular holiday for dating couples. One of the most popular things to do this time of year is to check out the many illumination events held across the city where Christmas lights are gorgeously displayed.

In Osaka every year around Christmas, there are numerous light displays set up in Nakanoshima near the Yodoyabashi area of the Midosuji Subway Line as part of the Osaka Hikari Renaissance. Large and small scale displays all along the waterfront makes this a good date activity, where you can slowly stroll from site to site snapping pictures and trying out all the yatai (food stalls) that are sure to pop up.

Rudolph is no longer needed... he can stay home

If you don’t mind large crowds and waiting in line, you may also want to take a 45 minute train ride to Kobe to check out Luminarie. This popular festival started in 1995 to commemorate the Great Hanshin Earthquake that devastated Kobe and surrounding areas. Each year in December, an area near JR Sannomiya Station is closed off to traffic and huge elaborate installations are lit up by countless hand painted lightbulbs. There were rumors several years back that the festival would be ending due to costs, but from their website it appears to be going strong with millions of visitors taking in the sights each year. This is really a fantastic event that attracts tourists as well as local Japanese, so if you are in the area by all means check it out – just be prepared to wait in line for an hour or two.

Photo credits – Osaka Hikari Renaissance
Submitted for J-Festa December 2011

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