Hey! Merry Christmas everyone! Welcome to the minimatt.com Christmas Edition! I hope all of you will have a great Christmas Day and an even better start to your New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Tiger (in Japan)!

So this is my first Christmas abroad. Sure it’s popular in other parts of the world but not to the extent you’d think. In Japan, it’s popular for all different reasons. Christmas for most Japanese has absolutely nothing to do with religion. They hear it’s a day kids in the Americas and Europe get all these cool gifts. But they know very little about the origins.

Here it’s popular to celebrate on Christmas Eve along with Christmas Day. A little like back home I guess, depending on the family tradition. The major differences lie in the next few sentences. Family is not a big thing during this holiday. Friends like to get together, maybe exchange a few gifts and hang out. Usually when the family has dinner on one of the two “special” nights. They’ll hit up the local fast food store for some tasty fried chicken (if the lines at KFC are just too out of control).

Lastly of course, we can not forget the “Christmas Cake.” What? Christmas Cake? Yes, CHRISTMAS Cake. Throw a Santa figurine on there, maybe a fake piece of Holly, and now you have a Christmas Cake. Ok sure, it’s all cutesy, there’s nothing wrong with the appearance. It’s about half the size of a normal cake, but then again, everything here is half size. However,… the price is the exception to that rule.

I got to see a couple of cakes at this store where people were LINED up. I was thinking to myself “must be a pretty good store or they have a good deal going on.” I walk over and almost knocked a couple of people over. The cakes cost about 45 to 65 USD. A single sliver of a slice goes for about 7 USD. So to say the least, I said,… no thank you and moved on.

So take everything you know about Christmas and throw it away. When it comes to traveling on this side of the planet, the likelihood is it’s very different. I think some sushi and sake sounds like an excellent way to celebrate tonight! Merry Christmas everyone!