A very Kitty Christmas

This week past I enjoyed my first Christmas living in (as opposed to visiting) Japan, this time firmly ensconced in my little aparto in Matsue. The weather outside was gloriously sunny and not too cold, but we did not concern ourselves overmuch with such trivialities, having as we did all the necessary ingredients for a day inside under the kotatsu:

• christmas presents under a christmas tree
  
• chocolate (at least for everyone except the Delightful Miss E, who has an allergy to the stuff)
• Nabe
• Hello Kitty christmas decorations

So we sat about reading our christmas presents for most of the day, and in the late afternoon we had nabe for our christmas lunch. Nabe is a big pot on a portable gas stove, which is filled with a flavoured sauce and then set to boil. Various goodies are chucked in, cooked and then plucked out with chopsticks to be eaten. In the above pictures you can see the nabe on our kotatsu. The overhead shot is in the last stage of the nabe, after the noodles have been added to soak up the remains of the sauce. It wasn't quite as devastatingly overdone as the Anglerfish Nabe I ate some weeks ago, but it did leave us in a little pain, so we were more than happy to lie back and do nothing for the evening as well. For the day we had the indefatigable Miss Violet staying, here for our wedding, and so we were able to entertain ourselves most admirably (and I recieved a much-needed scarf and beany from her for my present).

The Japanese celebrate christmas vigourously (as I have observed before) but mostly as a kind of mid-winter valentine's day, with couples going out for dinner on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is in every other respect a completely normal day, and being in this case a Monday, everyone else in Matsue was at work as normal. Although the build-up to christmas feels like christmas (because of the decorations everywhere and the sense of climax of the year which the Japanese have in the lead-up to New Year, which is their biggest day), it was still mighty strange to be able to go outside and see the world running along as if nothing at all was meant to be happening. Terribly original! And pity the poor Nova teachers who have to work that day ...