Hello everybody!~
Christmas is around the corner. Amazing how time flies!
People who follow this journal for quite some time might know that I had to work on Christmas the last few years, so no Christmas for me at all. Furthermore December is one of the busiest months at work as well.
Last year was especially horrible! (2009/12/23 //// 2008/12/26)

This year feels more like Christmas. I'm not exactly sure why.



Maybe because it's the first time that I actually have some Christmas decoration in my apartment.
The snowman on the left was a present I got last year, the Christmas card is from my family, the candles are handmade from a member of my family, the rest I bought this year in a 100-yen shop! Yay! XD



I can has Kurisumasu tsurii XD



100yen stores REALLY have cute stuff (*__*)v



This looks like it was bright daylight, but it was not XD My finger got in the way of the flash and so I got some really nice light effects in this photo XD
The luck is with the untalented people I guess



Maybe because I got an "Adventskalender" from back home (haven't had one in AGES!).
It's a cute one. I really like the picture!

Maybe because it's just not as busy as the last few years?!

Anyways, this year feels a bit more like Christmas :)
Still, I will have to work on the 25th and I will be alone throughout Christmas time, but I think I've gotten used to it.
It's not so much different from my last Christmas in Germany anyways :) (2007/12/24))

A little bit early maybe, but:



Speaking of Christmas, I suppose most of you know how Japanese celebrate Christmas? How do you celebrate Christmas in your country? ^-^
First of all, the majority of Japanese people is not Christian (I remember reading something about 3-5% if at all). Thus, Christmas is not a Japanese holiday at all.
So, there are also no national holidays for Christmas, of course.
Well, today (23rd) is a national holiday, but that has nothing to do with Christmas. It's "just" the birthday of the current Japanese emperor!!
However, there IS Christmas stuff going on here in Japan nevertheless. While it's not a Japanese festival, they adapted it from Western countries and modified it to their liking.
Usually on Christmas Eve they eat a Christmas cake. Some families prefer to make it by themselves, but all major department stores offer a huge variety of uber-cute Christmas cakes as well.
Here are some examples from a free pamphlet I grabbed in a department store.







Cute, right?

I still don't get where the tradition of cake eating is coming from, though!

Some Japanese have Christmas decoration in their house, even a Christmas tree! The latter is usually made of plastic, though. Ugh!
I even saw PINK plastic Christmas trees!!!!! (O___O'') ..... Well, if they like it, why not, huh?! *g*
Usually, as long as a family has young kids, they'll get presents. Different from other countries(?!) Santa Clause will put a present right next to their pillow while they're sleeping (in the night from the 24th to the 25th).
That's pretty much all there is to Christmas here in Japan.
Christmas is also the best excuse to waste a lot of money and electricity and put up huge and impressive illuminations in all major cities!
Furthermore, Christmas Eve is also the best time for couples. It's the time were couples go on a special Christmas date together.
At least that's a common point with other countries: you're not supposed to spend Christmas alone.


Japan has another holiday that is much closer to the Western Christmas, though. Oomisoka + Shougatsu (New Years Eve and Day).
This is spent with the family, it's a quiet time and kids usually get money as present from their parents. While we go to curch on Christmas, they go to shrines on the 1st of January to pray for good luck in the new year.
They also have traditional food then and send postcards!
Instead of Christmas cards it's New Year's cards in Japan, though, also known as "nengajou" (年賀状).
On the front there's always the animal that represents the next year according to the Chinese horoscope. As you probably know 2010 was the year of the tiger, so the postcards had prints of tigers on them.
Next year will be the year of the rabbit, so all the postcards are full of cute rabbits ^-^



This year I finished early on. No last-minute stress, hehe. I already sent out all my New Year's cards.
Sending them within Japan is free! Also, there are numbers on the back and in the new year there will be a huge lottery with these numbers - then you can check if you won something or not ^-^



This year I also got cute stickers that I used to decorate the cards ^-^
It was so much fun!!!!


That made me realize how much I wanna do something more creative with my own hands. All I ever do is stuff on the computer nowadays. While I still use my hands, it's just typing.
It felt refreshing to actually write stuff and think about layouts and stuff. I wanna do that more often!!!



Maybe that's also the reason why I bought yet another (cute) diary. Haven't even touched one of the ones I previously bought, though.
I want to write in Japanese every now and then to practice my handwriting, but apart from not having time I also lack ideas.
Anybody has an idea what I could write about? Anything special that keeps my motivation up would be better than just always random stuff, so if you have any idea, please let me know! ^-^



Christmas presents to my family are out, too, but I'm not sure if they'll arrive on time as there's chaos on airports due to the snow in Europe right now :/
I also printed some of my photos for the FIRST time ever (in a conbini! *g*) - because I also sent a few back home. I was surprised to see how awesome some of them look (*____*)v



This is quite random, but I forgot to post it before. I bought this souvenir when I went to Miyajima a while ago.
The cool thing about this cellphone strap is:



When you push it, the filling seems to come out. Pretty cool! :D



Yesterday I bought some tea again. I love fruit and herbal tea just as much as Japanese green tea.
It wasn't really cheap, but I really love that tea brand!! Especially the Echinacea bear one - and it's healthy, too, especially now that I caught a cold :/



Photo resource: Amazon Japan
Lately I became interested in aroma stuff again (not really aroma therapy, though).
I used to have one of those thingies back home in Germany where you just have to use a candle under a small bowl with some drops of aroma oil and a bit of water. I really liked that.
A while ago one of my coworkers brought an aroma diffuser to work and now it's running there almost nonstop.
Right after that I saw a really cheap one in the shopping mall (only 19$!) - see the one above.
I bought it in the end although I knew that I cannot take it back home to Germany with me, but as it was cheap, it's not a big deal.
I also bought a pottery thingie where I can use the aroma oil and all I need is a candle.
Unfortunately you get what you pay for and the aroma diffuser I bought doesn't smell that good. Usually I can't smell much of the oil and it smells more like plastic :(
I also started using incense sticks again. Japan offers some REALLY nice flavors.
However, I started worrying about the smoke as I'm not a smoker - and actually HATE smoke. So I googled around a bit and found that incense sticks, but also aroma oils can be quite dangerous for your health!!!! :(
Maybe I should stop using it after all???!!!!
Anybody knows more?



Alright, that's all for now.
The med I'm taking right now makes me REALLY sleepy and I have difficulties staying awake. Well, it's already late anyways, so I guess that's okay.
I still have quite a few working days ahead of me, but nevertheless I wish everybody AWESOME HOLIDAYS!!!!!!