The Holidays, Looking West

This whole 'holiday season' thing over here in the East is pretty interesting. Thanksgiving was the first of holidays not shared by the people around me - not the Gaijin, and certainly not the Japanese. In America Thanksgiving more or less officially kicks off the holiday season, and everybody knows about Black Friday. At work today my co-workers were comparing notes on when their families put up Christmas trees, and for Dan (from England) Christmas preparation was totally unrelated to Thanksgiving. I mean, obviously, but I certainly paused for a minute to think – here is someone speaking English, but November 23^rd is a complete non-issue for him. I wonder if Great Britain has a holiday kick-off.

The vacation is of course, different too. I got Thanksgiving and the day after off from work only because I always have Thursday and Fridays off. I'm working on Christmas day. Christmas is not really a big deal here. The major stores have light displays and play Christmas music, but nobody knows what it’s about or celebrates it. Christmas Eve is a big night for couples (think Valentines Day), but the real celebration happens around New Year’s. This is when everybody goes home to their family, makes special food, and exchanges gifts. This is also when Nova closes for 8 days!

Even though the holidays are going down really differently over here, I am getting the most important stuff. I could not find brownie mix (much less the ingredients to make it from scratch), but I am getting one thing that the holidays are really all about - family and friends! I feel really lucky and blessed in this respect: I live halfway across the world, and yet I'm able to be with family and friends for the holidays. Rob, a friend of mine from college, works for Nova near Nagoya (a few prefectures away) and came up for Thanksgiving! It was great to see him and to be able to spend time with somebody from my previous life. A couple of days after Christmas my sister arrives in Tokyo (!!!) and she will be here for almost 2 weeks! Tokyo better get ready for two McElveens… In the extended holiday season (the time from New Year's to my birthday at the end of January) I'm getting another visitor - Sarah Doe (!!!) the week before my birthday. I’m already pumped.