The Fifth Season

 

     Between the the pumpkin latte craze and our hopeful commitment to unlikely resolutions is the height of holiday season. Like any other season on the calendar it lasts approximately three months and it brings with it the feelings of wonder, joy, family, and nostalgia that the other seasons generally lack. I have tried so many times to explain this phenomenon to my foreign students. "Yes, for almost a month each year priorities across the nation seem to shift so that the holidays become the focal point of our lives. Weekend plans, household decorations, food, crafts, children games, to do lists, and even water cooler chatter and everything else are enveloped by the season - like a house under too many Christmas lights it can be both cheery and overwhelming. 

        Surprisingly, Japan celebrates many of the same holidays in this season. There is Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years marked on the calendars and merchandised in the 100 yen shops. It is common to buy and send to friends and loved ones (for new years instead of Christmas). There is special holiday food for Christmas (strawberry cake and KFC chicken) and new years (o-sechi: mostly fish and noodles and rice and veggies in combined so that everything has significance). There are even holiday games and family gatherings and seasonal decorations.  Yet the season doesn't seem to be the same in Japan. These preparations do not penetrate all  aspects of life like the American holidays. In America, the intensity as we build up to the actual days is a wave created by  commercializing big businesses and the church that builds in intensity till the holiday arrives and breaks the floodgates. In America I always felt a buzz of anticipation in the air which put a pep in my step despite the season's growing to do list. But Japan does not anticipate. There may be Christmas trees and Santa decorations but these holidays are one day celebrations, not seasons. In the end there is no build up, making the holiday feel a little emptier to me somehow.  

           I am specifically thinking of Thanksgiving as my example. This year in Japan I hosted Thanksgiving and fed almost thirty people with the full smorgasbord. All the familiar flavors were there as were pumpkin decorations and two cornucopias (which are shockingly hard to find in Japan). But when the dinners were done and I was cleaning up I still didn't feel like it had happened. In America the themed decor, school events, foods, cinnamon pine cones, and inundation with gourds bombard us for a month to build anticipation and capitulate with the day. In  Japan the change of seasons is felt in a more passive and polite way - present but not assertive. Without the countdown the consummation was incredibly fun, but did not feel like a holiday.

                                       

It is worth noting here that, although Japan does not celebrate our "holiday season," they do celebrate the actual seasons in stunning and intense ways.