December

The weekend went by then poof! It's December~

Recently, I realized how being in Japan has affected me. December is slowly becoming just a normal month.

DECEMBER... December... December...

Man, the more I stare at the word, the meaningless it becomes. It used to be one of the most exciting anticipated part of the year; with my family setting up the Christmas tree as early as October, the lights wound around the bushes by November, and finally decorations in every room by December. The air would begin to cool down (just a teeny bit) and the breeze would come in through the windows. Winter in my country means that the temps would go down by a couple of degrees. *shrug*

It was the time when people would have an extra smile, a bouncier step, and wallets flapping in anticipation of year-end bonuses. I remember when we would always plan to go on a trip to Hong Kong for the Christmas vacation, my mom going as far as renewing our passports. But as the -ber months roll by, so does the possibility of ever buying those plane tickets. And then it would finally come down to not mentioning it at all. I guess we're just not yet ready on spending too much cash just for a trip to another city. When we have our own an hour's drive away.

It was quite a surprise when I found out that the Japanese Winter Christmas extravaganza I always see in animes and J-doramas actually is just a commercially consumer-directed fad, celebrated just for the heck of it. That we have to go to work on a Thursday Christmas morning, go to a late-night Nihongo class, and probably buy a slice of strawberry cake to munch on the way home before crashing on the bed then go to work again tomorrow is a bit depressing to actually process right now

Me and my friends have even resorted to postponing thinking about Christmas. But seeing as how it's just 3 weeks till those carolers back home would start ringing doorbells and singing mangled hymns, we should probably get started on planning our plans for the holidays so that we would have something to report back home. Otherwise we would just end up depressed.

This will be our first Christmas here in Japan, we should also make it the best. But not "too best" so that we could still outdo it next year. I wish it would snow... minus the sludge.