The most wonderful time of the year...?

Japan is trying to force Christmas on me.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. I adore Christmas. The Christmas season is my absolute favorite time of year, where there's warm homes and warm hearts, hot cocoa and singing Christmas carols with the people you love. I really believe that because it's coming to the time we celebrate Jesus' birth, people 's hearts begin to warm, Christian or not. That's what I love most about it.

However...it started about two days before Halloween. I walked into Beisia and I saw...a Christmas display. I ignored it. I walked away. "No, it's not even Halloween yet..." I mean, they had a Halloween display up too in the front, but...

It only got worse once Halloween was out of the way. It started creeping up on me slowly...a placard advertising Christmas cakes (which are really pretty but frickin' expensive here), the occasional Christmas display in stores in Kyoto and Tokyo...that Christina Aguilera Christmas song playing in Beisia...

I knew it was over when I went to Beisia today and I heard "This Christmas" over the speakers. A J-Pop, very Engrish "This Christmas". I have given up. I am officially bringing out my Christmas music and looking for a modest wreath to stick on my door.

...It's gonna be kinda awkward when it gets to Thanksgiving. (We're having a dinner here at JCMU, but most Japanese don't celebrate it, of course.)

[Totally unrelated: I like to buy things here that I will probably never see in the US...like Pepsi Gold. I don't think America is ready for a Pepsi that looks like pee.

....Then again, there's Red Bull...]