"Kurisumasu made ato ikkagetsu arimasu."
There's still a month until Chrismas.
My mother still speaks fondly of the Christmas decorations at the local mall, a half-hour drive from where we used to live. This was over two decades ago, and the commercialism and saccharine of the holiday season wasn't as, well, downright scary as it is in the present day US.
Unfortunately, Japan is catching up. And fast. I have already been hearing Chrismas songs on the radio for at least two weeks. At least in the US, you have Thanksgiving as a barrier for the Christmas craziness. Here, all we have is Halloween, if that. I can understand how Japan would not be celebrating the anniversary of a non-harvest non-feast (three grains of parched corn?? And the locals brought you food, and you show them thanks by systematically killing their prey animals, taking away their land, marching them across the continent so that the majority of them die from exhaustion and cold, and force them on reservations. Um, way to show gratitude, Pilgrims?) in a then-non-country on a different continent, but could we please at least wait until the month of December?
And could we go easy on the commercialism here? Or, if you are going to do the commercial thing, could we please have a Christmas tax, for every lit-up shrub and hair salon door, you pay a tax that goes to a legitimate Christian church in Japan, or perhaps the Japanese Salvation Army, that helps people in need?
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