Christmas is not a big deal here in Japan, for obvious reasons. Even though many couples get married in a (fake) Christian ceremony with all the related trappings, the number of actual Christians in Japan is very small.
Thus, Christmas is more of a commercial thing, where people exchange gifts and friends go out together. Naturally, there is Christmas food, KFC chicken and strawberry cake, both of which feels super weird to me. To be fair, more and more Christmas-related sweets are for sale every year. I even saw chocolate Santas (aka: Nikolaus) from Europe in a popular shop selling foreign foods.
Until I get an oven and can bake my own Christmas cookies, this is the kind of fare I’ll have to make do with. And advent tea, of course. My friend from Tokyo has once again sent me an advent calendar filled with a surprise selection of tea. Today’s flavour was “Santa’s Secret”, a perfect fit to my chocolate and the strawberry cake I had for breakfast. Happy advent indeed!