It's beginning to feel a lot like...

Christmas in Sagami Ono, mid November

I'm getting all Christmasy. Friend Bill is coming in next week for the season, as he does now every year. We'll go get a tree and tart her up real pretty and hope nobody stops by that is susceptible to photosensitive convulsions.

The hostes with the mostes are in California this year, not Argentina, and they are putting on their Christmas Eve do, complete with Santa, and suddenly I'm faced with all this evidence that I've got a whole bunch of traditional behaviors to display! And I'm looking forward to it.

My family is less enthusiastic. The husband is excited about Bill's arrival, about Paz's play about Madame Bovary which we have tickets for and about Santa coming down some metaphorical chimney with gag gifts for everybody on the Eve, but he views the notion of Christmas through Japanese eyes. In Japan, Christmas is a time for getting laid for the first time, something high school kids do the way so many do on prom night in America. And it's all about jinguru beruzu, jinguru beruzu, jinguru oru za way... more than it is about the Messiah's arrival being signaled by stars in the Western sky, kings wandering in from a neighboring kingdom not being a Japanese thing.  But he goes along with the rest of us. Miki and Bounce, who make our family complete, have only one request of Santa, that their breakfast and their dinner continue to arrive more or less on schedule.

I've been listening all morning to the King's College Choir at Cambridge. Damn if they don't melt my cold jaded heart. Nothing like boy sopranos to warm you to the idea that not all religious traditions are toxic, that you need to move over and let the Christians have their annual holiday without your anti-religion snarking. Christians feel an uplift toward a transcendental figure who, if you believe in him, takes away your cynicism and disappointment with the human condition. I can get into that. I feel an uplift when I hear those angelic voices and find myself wondering how it is one can create such incredible beauty using nothing more than the human voice - OK, so the gothic church, the choir robes and the organ background also play a role - if one applies the proper discipline and gets the proper training.

The silly people continue to find stuff to object to, of course, the exclusivist political Christians who insist that Christmas belongs to them and not you. And folks on the other end of the spectrum as well, those who find any and all tradition stuffy and fail to understand the power of ritualistic behavior in creating a sense of well-being. Then, of course, there are the really silly-dilly folk like the fundamentalists at FamilyVoice Australia, who have their tits in a knot over the use of a hunky gay couple by Bond's Underwear Company  to sell their wares with a Christmas theme. Seems FamilyVoice doesn't know family when it's staring them in the face, poor fellows.

No matter. The world still turns. We will still say Merry Christmas when speaking to friends who we know, whether for religious reasons or cultural, celebrate that holiday. And we'll demonstrate the Christmas Spirit by saying Happy Holidays in public venues instead of Merry Christmas where it is important to stress that, as citizens of an all-inclusive country, we'd like to make sure Jews and Muslims and Hindus do not feel left out. 

So whether you, like my Lutheran friends do, light the advent candles, or whether you sign up to sing Handel's Messiah, whether you decorate a tree or whether you're planning on sushi for Christmas, I recommend giving in to the notion that "it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas."  

And set aside if you can some time to listen to the Choir at King's College Cambridge, and be thankful for beautiful things. There are many videos. I'd recommend starting here. 

It will be oh so good for the soul.

photo credit: Taku took this photo at Sagami Ono Station on November 18th. No idea how long it had been up by then.