Japanese Christmas Traditions

Japanese celebrating Christmas? Sure it's not an official national holiday, but it's an ever growing popular custom in the land of the Rising Sun. The marketing and selling of all things cute (think Hello Kitty) is a huge billion dollar industry in Japan and images of Ol' Saint Nick with his reindeer have cut himself a nice sliver of that pie. But like all things Japanese, things are done a little differently than here in the West. How so? Well dinners are not served with a traditional turkey and all the trimmings but with a special western style meal and a Christmas cake.

So what is a Japanese Christmas cake you ask? Well it's certainly not to be confused with the traditional Christmas fruitcake that is still popular in the U.S and England.


"Fruitcake is forever."

It's definitely a matter of personal taste whether you enjoy this fruit and nut concoction but the actual longevity is undisputed with reports of holiday fruitcake being passed on as a family heirloom from generation to generation.


Ah, whipped cream frosting, my fav!

Above is an example of what a Japanese Christmas cake looks like. What? It looks like regular strawberry shortcake you say? Shush! It's Christmas cake! It consists of a special sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries. Well, OK it is a strawberry shortcake but my hat's off if you're able to bake a successful cake like this at home. I tried to save money one year and the results came out as bad as my infamous tres leches cake attempt. Leave it to the professionals!

Like last year, Rika and I have bought one to take home to the family (this time we promise not to forget it) and it'll be mocha flavored this time.

So what's the special western meal that many Japanese families are celebrating the holiday's with this year? Well I've e-mailed Mark and the rest of the gang last year on this but it's KFC for the unaware. The Colonel's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices appear to be the choice of eats but no one seems to know how it got started that way. Check out the Japanese KFC website. Some visiting americans have commented on the sheer brillance of how a small number of corporate execs in the 70's convinced a nation that Christmas=KFC.


Here's Rika at KFC during the non-holidays.



It's starting to look at lot like xmas... ©Jeff Laitila - Sushicam.com


Saint Sanders at work. ©Jeff Laitila - Sushicam.com

Bare in mind not everyone in Japan eats chicken on Christmas day. I've read that some eat pizza. Rika has warm holiday memories of her mom cooking a good old fashioned- western style steak. I like the sound of that, hmm wonder if that can catch on here?

High Speed Internet

After almost two months of suffering with no home Internet connection I finally got my broadband connection today, just not with DSL.

Originally 2 weeks before I moved I called Verizon to let them know I was moving and I wanted to transfer my phone and DSL service to the new house. They said no problem and that my phone would be ready when I moved and that my DSL would be re-instated about 8 days later. Well they messed up my phone order and I didn't get that working for at least a week. Also 8 days after I moved I called to get status regarding my DSL connection and they told me the order was never placed and they could get it working by Dec 20th. Since I was using Verizon's webmail feature at work I and didn't want to lose my email address I put up with it. Then a day later they closed my pixar@verizon.net account and removed all access to my online files (which explains why you can't see any of my blog pictures). I called again to complain and they said that this was normal since I was transfering service and that my email and files would be reinstated when my DSL connection was working. Not great, but again I could live with it.

Well today was the 20th and no DSL connection was setup so I called to inquire about the DSL status again. I was told by Verizon that my order was dropped because my new phone line "didn't qualify". Great... thanks for telling me that Verizon, now I lost everything.

This was the final straw. I called Adelphia and ordered high speed internet service and had it activated within minutes. Since I already owned a cable modem I was online in just a few seconds with a much faster 3+ Mbps internet connection. Why I didn't do this sooner, I'll never know.