Christmas Eve in Kashihara

I’d just returned from the grocery store where I had been purchasing supplies for my Christmas dinner. Although I’ve joked this week of a meal of noodles and rice I’ve managed to cobble together a traditional Christmas deal from a visit to two stores in the neighborhood. I now have myself some ham, potatoes, corn and orange juice. It’s not turkey but, hey, it’s not bad. This evening would be the Japanese meal so that I can feel I’m melding the Christmas cultures. The stores weren’t as packed as they would be back home with shoppers but they were still pretty busy. Christmas music was pumped over the loudspeakers. I think this place only has two tapes as I’ve heard the same tunes daily on my visits for supper. At the second stop I was looking for Soy sauce. Wouldn’t think you’d have any trouble finding Soy sauce here, huh? I stood in the aisle. Everything looked like Soy sauce, dozens of bottles of black liquid. I decided to ask for help. I mean, the Japanese clerks couldn’t get confused by me asking for Soy sauce, huh? I found two stockboys. I asked the one who looked less busy. He instantly became flustered, deer in the headlights. This happens often. I call it the Gajin Surprise. He managed to collect himself and steered me towards the proper vile of black liquid…or so I thought. At the cash the pretty cashier told me that this was Sushi sauce. I ask her to hold my stuff as I return to the stock boys to try to explain the dilemma. Man, you thought he was flustered before. He told me to hold on and sprinted off to get help. You know, I don’t know how it happened but by the end of it all I was standing in front of about 5 store workers including the pretty cashier who had abandoned her post to see if I was alright and each of them had a different bottle of black liquid in hand. I choose the one I had originally taken to the cash as it said in English on the bottle “ALL PURPOSE”. Good enough for me. I paid, smiled at the pretty cashier, wished her a Merry Christmas and headed home to the slowly emptying apartment.

I have to admit, I felt terrible. It was a mixture of things, not just the cold which had decided to make a permanent residence in my body over the holidays. Andre The Flu Hotel! This wasn’t Christmas. I was missing turkey. I missing my Grandmother’s annual family gathering. I missing my daughter. I was even missing Megan, if you can imagine that! Why did I come out here, I thought? What the hell was I thinking? Before coming out I told myself a year away for the holidays was going to be a breeze. Wrong-o! No, this wasn’t Christmas. This sucked. I was sick and alone and miserable. I felt like Scrooge. I felt like the Grinch. I felt like both of them combined. I was the Grooge!

I just wanted it to be done.
Why did Christmas have to come!
I laid back in bed.
Tossed the covers up over my head.
Maybe I could sleep it away
and wake up to just a regular day.
And then came a sound from outside my door.
A sound I had never heard before.
It started out low…
…and then…
then it started to grow!



I got out of bed and went outside zipping up my coat and headed to the direction of the sound. What I found only a few blocks away had be hurrying back to get my camera. There, in the open space in front of the Kintetsu mall, was a Christmas miracle! They had set up a huge Christmas tree made of lights with a giant star on top. Various other trees were placed around the yard made of bottles with lights in them. On the ground were little lanterns that spelled out ’07 and another in the shape of the Kashihara City symbol. It was beautiful. I had a Christmas tree! Sure, it wasn’t a pine but damn it if it wasn’t a Christmas tree all the same!

















A stage had been set up where currently a gorgeous girl was performing J-pop music. Not my type of tuneage but how could I turn away from this angel in white before my eyes! Suddenly she was joined by a second angel and the due of beauties sang their hearts out to a sparse crowd. People rushed and gave them flowers and gifts.

Next up was an opera singer who moved some in the crowd to tears with her voice. I found myself getting misty when she sang Silent Night. There was something growing inside me all of a sudden. What was that? Other acts would follow, each of them adding a Christmas Carol or two. Some of them would be Japanese renditions and others would be sung in English and to those tunes I found myself singing along, dancing around the yard bopping to the beat. Hell, even the set up music, A Mariah Carey Christmas, couldn’t stop festive frolicking.


When they were through and off the stage I walked about the now growing crowd. There was a tent where you could get free coffee from a woman in a Rudolph costume. “Arigato, Rudolph,” I said when she passed me a cup. She giggled. Between acts a woman in a Santa outfit and a man in another Rudolph costume handed out gifts to the kids in the crowd. Some of the kids were dressed in little Christmassy outfits and they laughed and played around the lights.



Now THIS, THIS felt like Christmas. Ack! There was that feeling again. And in Kashihara City, they say, the Grooges Christmas Spirit grew 10 times that day! Watching the kids and the costumes and listening to the Christmas music from the stage and the lights and…everything….everything in this small patch of land in front of the train tracks three blocks from my apartment….all of this obliterated the last two weeks of negativity I’d been heaping on the season. I couldn’t stop Christmas from coming…it just came…it just came all the same! When hunger finally pulled me away from the scene I was smiling and singing Christmas songs under my breath. I felt good…rejuvenated by my Kashihara Christmas. Amazing what the spirit of the season can do to a man.

MERRY CHRISTMAS MOVIE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!