Merry Christmas!!

Christmas in Japan is turning out to be as strange as it is unexpected.  Christmas, or more precisely Xmas, is everywhere.  Restaurants and stores are advertising Christmas presents and Christmas cakes.  A fair number of Japanese houses in our neighborhood are sporting various Christmas displays, including a 10 foot tall inflatable Homer Simpson dressed as a Santa hanging from a balcony nearby.  But not one cross or nativity scene.  Actually, we did see a large white cross in the hand of a Santa Claus at a car dealership on our way to Christopher's wrestling match, but we really aren't sure what that means??? We went to a shopping district to buy items for gift boxes that are headed to an orphanage in Cambodia and it was Christmas music and Christmas decorations galore, but, sadly, the reason for the season was completely missing.

       
Look carefully and you will see Christmas images everywhere from the snowmen in the window to the street banners and little touches like the reindeer sock holding brochures.  Even the official sign for the district has a Santa!

       
They get the part where Christmas is about selling. Christmas sales abound as do mixing western characters with Christmas images. The sign in the middle says "Have a Kentucky Christmas" which I guess means eating fried chicken.  There is a KFC in our town as well and you need to order weeks ahead to get a roast chicken take out for Christmas dinner.  This in a city where Christmas isn't even a day off. 

               
There are flower shops everywhere in Japan, eclipsed in numbers only by mini marts, 100 Yen shops (like a dollar store) and hair salons.  Poinsettias are providing bright red swaths of color in every one.  Yes, that's cotton in the last picture.  We're not quite sure if that is a traditional Japanese decoration or...  

       
The amusement parlors, which are also numerous, are decorating for Christmas and filling their games with Christmas oriented prizes.  The dollar stores are full of Christmas displays.

       
The stores are full of Christmas decorations for sale and even the fake food displays outside traditional Japanese restaurants get a touch of holiday gear.  However, and this really took the edge off our shopping trip for us, we did not find one overtly Christian image in rack after rack of Santas and Snowmen.  Emily said she saw some nativity scenes at a huge craft store called Tokyo Hands a few weeks ago but on our outing: nothing. 

   
If you look carefully at the sign on the right, up and to the left of the Santa, you'll see an example of the type of mangled or misinterpreted English that is very common here: "Most exiting shop for young ladies..."  Guess they have a hard time keeping customers.  One of the major department stores is advertising a "Very Christmas" which I suppose could be intentional from a sales point of view, and we are pretty sure that an Xmas album being marketed on TV is being called "Happy Homey Crispmas." 

Please pray for the people of Japan.  The potential for a sweeping move towards Christianity is incredible.  They are fascinated with things western in a sort of love/hate relationship and the country is changing rapidly.  They do things en masse which opens the possibility of mass conversions.  They are a people who desperately need a substantive religion to replace meaningless ritual.  In the weeks proceeding Christmas we are pausing to pray for each family home we pass on the way to school that even so much as puts out a 100 Yen store string of Christmas lights (10 bulbs) or flocks a snowflake on their window.  This goes double for the Homer Simpson Santa Clause house.  Please join us.