Christmas Around the World: Christmas (and New Year) in Japan

In Japan, Christmas is a legal Holiday, not a national Holiday, and it is not treated as such, other than that many schools will be closed that day.  In Japan, the actual big national Holiday in Japan is none other than New Year's Day.  The New Year is so big in Japan, that the celebration of it will continue well into January.

Also, while Christmas is associated with pretty much everybody in the United States, Christmas has only two associations in Japan: Children and couples.

The emphasis on couples is particularly strange to Americans, and the Japanese dating habits are even stranger: A highly successful KFC promotion in the 1970s has made it a mainstay in Japanese Christmas dinner, and because KFCs aren't always much bigger in Japan than they are here, they can get really crowded really quickly.  Thus, couples will book out KFCs long before it's time for the Holidays.

As for the children, because it's just a legal Holiday and not a national Holiday, what happens is that children just go to the houses of other children for little parties, with strawberry flavored Christmas Cakes, often decorated with plastic Santas, though also sometimes associated with the Holiday is Hoteisho, a Buddha associated with generosity.

The music most associated with Japanese Christmas is Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which was allegedly first sung in Japan by Germany prisoners during WWI:

However, for good measure, I'm going to share a song by Utada Hikaru, who performed a favorite song of mine, Hikari.  Now you get to hear her sing "Can't Wait 'Till Christmas":

It is often treated as a kind of prelude to the New Year, which is more like a Western Christmas in Japan, as this is the day when families get together and send out special greeting cards.

For the New Year, Japanese have a selection of various dishes combined together, the combination called "osechi-ryori", or "osechi" for short.  It consists of things like daidai, bitter oranges that symbolize wishes for children in the New Year, Datemaki, sweet omlettes which symbolize a wish for auspicious days, Kamaboko, a fried fish cake that symbolizes the rising sun, and Kanzunoko, a herring roe that symbolizes a wish for many children for the New Year.  Mochi is also a popular snack for the Japanese New Year.

Around December 31, the Buddhist temples will ring their bells around 108 times, to represent the 108 human sins of this Earth, in a kind of cleansing ritual.

There is no time busier for a postman in Japan than the transition from December to January, because this is when the postcards are sent to everybody, just like Christmas season in the United States.  Some of the things mailed include money, because of a custom called Otoshidama.

Now you know how to celebrate Christmas like the Japanise do!

Christmas Around the World: Christmas in Norway

It's actually late in the season to talk about Norwegian Christmas, but in light of Frozen 2, I feel it necessary to discuss what Christmas is like in Norway.

During Norway's Advent, small gifts are brought each day leading up to Christmas, sometimes in tandem with a chocolate advent calendar like we do in the United States, but unlike our Christmas, the mass present opening is as early as December 24.  Presents are generally treated as though they come from Santa Claus and a kind of creature best described as a gnome or a goblin called a Nisse.  A rice porrige is left for the Nisse because they are said to guard farm animals.  They also place bread crumbs on a leaf for the birds to eat from.

Once Christmas Eve comes, the Norwegians will light a candle every day from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day.

Children will go carol-singing in some parts of Norway, dressing up as characters from the traditional Christmas story, such as shephards and wise men.  On the subject of Christmas music, a huge mainstay in Norwegian Christmas music is the song Musevisa, which roughly translates as "the Mouse Song".  It's a song about two mice parents warning their children about traps as they make it through the Christmas season.  While the melody is an old folk tune, the lyrics were written in 1946 by Alf Proysen.

Now you know how to make Anna and Elsa celebrate Christmas in all of your objectively terrible fanfictions!

The History of the Season: Krampus vs. the Nazis (You Can't Make this Up)

Many of us are probably familiar with Krampus now: The Christmas Demon of the Alps, the punisher of naughty children.  It may be odd to Americans that demons played a role in the Holidays, but to some Europeans, especially Austrians, it actually makes perfect sense: Because he was so Holy and so learned, Saint Nicholas was believed, by tradition, to have cast out demons from the possessed, and then pressed them to help him with his causes.  In fact, it is in these demons that was have the origins of Santa's elves.

But all demons have their enemies, and Krampus made some rather interesting ones: Nazis.

Nazi control over Christmas was hardly unexpected; in the Christmas of 1921, Adolf Hitler gave a speech about how the Jews crucified Jesus, and every Christmas afterwards, Christian imagery was removed from Christmas in Nazi Germany.

When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, they tried to purge all imagery of Krampus from Austria.  What the Nazis exactly had against Krampus is somewhat unclear, but apparently, like most Holiday figures in Europe, he was perceived as being too Catholic.

But let's not kid ourselves: The Nazis were actually probably trying to purge Krampus because they were really naughty, and didn't want to get whipped by Krampus for all of their terrible deeds.

In the end, Krampus got his due: The Nazis were defeated, Austria was freed, and Krampus enjoyed more poplarity than he ever did before afterwards.

Merry Christmas, ya Filthy Animal!!

Sometimes, I think laughter is the best gift you can give somebody, because it really is good for your health, relaxing the body, boosting the immune system, and improving your cardio-vascular system, as you will see here. 

With this thought in mind, I made a playlist for you to laugh with (WARNING: Contains Bambi sloppy joes, Osama Bin Laden getting his comeuppance from Santa, and generally complaining about the difficulties of Christmas) and this playlist of Christmas nightcore.  Enjoy!

Whosday: The Runaway Bride

Probably the best Doctor Who Christmas special, The Runaway Bride remains a long-term staple in Doctor Who Holiday marathons.  It introduces possibly the best companion of the Revived Series, Donna Noble.  Of course, from the context of this special, it is not immediately apparent that she is going to be such a fleshed-out companion later.  Rather, when we first see her, she comes across as a very typical bridezilla...

...Which is precisely why getting more into her backstory works so well, because it gradually allows us to get to know her better, and allow us to find a far more likeable character than is presented to us.  It turns out that she was the tough and highly enthusiastic office worker who shouted because nobody listened to her, and when she later becomes a full-time companion during Series 4, she develops the best chemistry with the Tenth Doctor as a result of her multifaceted personality.

In their early hi-jinks together, the Doctor and Donna actually have an encounter with the robot Santas that better connects with the overarching plot of the special, rather than just be a mildly confusing side-plot like The Christmas Invasion.


Donna eventually makes it, and we get treated to a nice song:

And we see why this particular song was used for it, and why it fits so well: We later learn that the man she was going to marry was sadly not interested in her, but rather to the frankly unattractive Racnoss Queen, even though Donna was actually somebody worth hanging on to.  He "roamed".  He didn't love her.

In the end, the Racnoss Queen betrays him and feeds him to her children, which even as Donna fairly observes, he "didn't deserve it".  It's moments like these that indicate that Russell T. Davies really did understand Doctor Who all along.  Doctor Who is never about the bad guys who just objectively deserve to be beaten in the cruelest possible stroke unless it's the Daleks...or unless Eric Saward is the script editor, one thinks of the show during the early 1980s.

Doctor Who is typically a show about flawed people who make a series of mistakes that they and others end up paying for, and the best example of this is Lance Bennett, a man who felt like he was surrounded by people who thought too small, and found somebody who seemed to think bigger in the form of the Racnoss Queen...but in order to maintain his relationship with his alien lover, he ends up using a completely innocent woman for his own ends, and in the end, pays dearly for his cruelty, but perhaps beyond the actual proportions of his crimes.  He deserved to face serious consequences, but he didn't deserve to be eaten by Racnoss.

In general, this special deserves its good reputation.  This special was what made the Doctor/Donna dynamic possible, and that was the best part of Series 4!

While Russel T. Davies' first two seasons of Doctor Who had room for improvement, Series 3 was, by contrast, when he started to get truly good and every bit worthy of the nostalgia that he gets.  If you want to get Series 3 with all of those gift cards you're probably going to get for Christmas, I suggest you try here if you prefer digital, or here if you're backwards Luddite Neanderthal who loves special features like me.

Musical Monday: The Nightcore Before Christmas

...And we must prepare accordingly! I would never go this long without having something ready for my second favorite Holiday (my favorite being Thanksgiving)! What better way to enjoy Christmas than Nightcore?

For those of you not in the loop, nightcore generally refers to songs sped up on average from 10-30%.  It was coined by the Norwegian DJ duo,  Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Olga Soderholm.  It was originally used for their own dance music, because they noticed that speeding up their tracks kept their music very happy while also still suitably "edgy".  However, when music aficionados on YouTube found this genre, they edited their favorite tracks with various sound-editing software, making their own "nightcore" takes on various songs, and no genre was left out: Hip-hop, rock, musica numbers, and even Christmas music, which perfectly fits the jolly power the nighcore style of mixing can convey.

To give you an example of this, here is a nightcore take on What's This:

While perhaps not the best introduction to NightCore, you can hear how the audible energy of Jack Skellington is now almost doubled, brimming with enthusiasm!

If you think that nightcore has potential, try playlists such as this one and this one!

Support Homeless Animals: Lonely Pup in A Christmas Shop

Christmas is a season for giving, and I would recommend that you make donations to animal shelters.  This year, many puppies will be adopted right and left, but not everybody will find homes.

This song was released around 1960, recorded by Adam Faith, and it was a smashing hit at the time, because puppies will always be a popular Christmas present, and this is sometimes the season when the shelters see the most adoptions, but it's just not always enough.  No matter what time of year it is, there are many cats and dogs who just can't have homes, many who need to be adopted and cared for.  Not every dog can afford to be a lonely pup in a Christmas shop, nor can every cat afford to be a lonely kitten in the same position.

If you're thinking about getting a present in the form of a dog or a cat, I would recommend that you seek out pets from such places, and give them homes, especially if you don't have any pets of your own, but have homes that can support them.

If you can't support a pet for any reason, be it a lack of money, a lack of space, or a concern over how pets in shelters might not be compatible with the pets you have, you can always donate to these organizations that do their best to help these animals and find good homes instead.  To donate to my local humane society, please try here  If you'd rather try the SPCA, please try here.

But if you do have pets, then if you want to give a bit of a late Christmas gift to your dog while you still have time and a chance, you can always click here.  Because it's past the 18th, there's not a guarantee that it will arive on Christmas day, so it might be a bit late, but that's okay...that's what pets are for.  To be friends who always forgive us, and will always be there to come back home to.

How Invader Zim stole Christmas

Everyone
Down in Detroit
Liked Christmas alot

...But Zim!
Who lived in his own house,
Did not!

Zim hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season
Now please don't ask why, no one knows quite the reason.
It could be that his gut was not easy to find.
It could be that his pants fit too tight on his behind.
But I think that the best reason to peruse,
Would be that his head had two screws too loose.

But whatever the reason, his head or his behind,
He stood there on Christmas Eve, waiting, hating mankind.
Staring down from his room with a sour Irken frown,
At warm lighted windows below in their town
For he knew that every human down in Detroit beneath
Was busy, now hanging up a Mistletoe wreath.

"And they're hanging up their stockings!" he said with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas, it's practically here!"
Then he growled with his Irken fingers nervously drumming
"I must find a way to stop Christmas from coming!"

For
Tomorrow, he knew...

All the human girls and boys,
They'd wake bright and early, they'd rush for their toys!
And then! Oh the noise, noise, noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE!!

Then the humans, young and old, would sit down for a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST
                    FEAST
                     FEAST
                      FEAST!
They'd feast on rice pudding, and rare Earth roast beef
To think they'd like such things was beyond Zim's belief!

And THEN!
They'd do something
He liked least of all!
Every human down in Detroit, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing,
They'd stand hand-in-hand, the humans would start singing!

They'd sing! And they'd sing!
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!
And the more Zim thought of this Earth-Christmas sing, the more Zim thought,
"I must stop this whole thing!
Why, for all of these Earth-years, I put up with it now!
I must stop this Christmas from coming...
           But how?"

Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
Zim
Got a wonderful, awful idea!

"I know just want to do!" Zim laughed in his throat,
And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.
Then he chuckled and clucked, "what a sly Irken trick!
With this hat and this coat, I look just like Saint Nick!"

"All I need is a reindeer"
Zim looked around
But since Reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop Invader Zim...?
No! Zim simply said,
"If I can'd find a Reindeer, I'll make one instead!"
So he called his bot GIR, and he took some red thread,
And he zipped a deer suit to the top of his head.

THEN
He took some old bags
And tupperware bowls to stir
On a ramshackle sleigh
Bearing songs from GIR.

All their windows were dark.  Quiet snow filled the air.
All the humans were dreaming Earth-dreams without care.
Then he came to the first little house on the square.
"This is stop number one!" the Invader Claus hissed
And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid down the chimney, which was quite tight on him,
But if Santa could do it then so could Invader Zim.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two,
Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue.
Where the little Earth stockings all hung in a row.
"These stockings," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
Around the whole room, and he took every present!
Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums!
Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!
And he stuffed them in bags.  Then Zim, very nimbly,
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimbly!

Then he slunk to the icebox.  He took the Earth feast!
He took the Earth pudding! He took their roast beast!
He cleaned out that ice box as quick as a flash!
Why, he even took their last can of Earth-hash!

Then he stuffed all of the food up the chimney with glee.
"And NOW!" grinned Zim, "I will stuff up the tree!"

And Zim grabbd the tree, and he started to shove,
When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.
He turned around fast, and he saw a familiar face,
The Membranes had resided in this place.
Zim had been by this tiny Earth daughter,
Who'd come out of bed for a cup of cold water.
She stared at Zim, and said, "Santa Claus, why
Did you forget the guillotine, WHY?"

But, you know, that Zim was so smart and so slick!
He thought up a lie! And he thought it up quick!
"My dear sweet girl!" the Invader-Claus lied,
"We don't have a guillotine because of the worker's strike!
So I'm taking this tree to my workshop, cute Earth-thing!
And I'll take it up there, and cut it to your guillotine!"

His fib didn't fool her, but it amused her to think,
Of how Dib would react, as she got her cold drink.
When Gaz Membrane went to bed with her cup,
Zim went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

Then the last thing he took
Was the log for their fire,
Then he went up the chimney himself, the old liar.
Leaving nothing but hooks and some wire.

And the one speck of food
that he left in the house
Was a crumb that was much too small for a mouse.

Then,
He did the same thing
To the other Earth houses

Leaving crumbs
Much too small
For the other Earth mouses!

It was a quarter past dawn,
All the humans, still a-bed,
All the humans still a-snooze
When he packed up his sled,
Packed it up with their presents! The ribbons! The wrappings!
The tags! And the tinsel! The trimmings! The trappings!

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of a hill,
He rode with his load all the way to the landfill!
"Pooh-Pooh to the Earthlings!" He was manically humming.
"They're finding out no Christmas is coming!
They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!
Their mouths will hang open for a minute or two
Then the humans down in Detroit will all cry BOO-HOO!"

"That's a noise," grinned Zim,
"That I simply MUST hear!"
So he paused, And he put his hand to where he had an ear,
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow
It started in low.  Then it started to grow...

"ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!" shouted a boy's voice.
Why, this sounded so scary!
It couldn't be so!
But it WAS scary, very!

He stared down at the slopes,
Zim popped his eyes!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!

It was Dib! A boy who, for his age was quite small,
Had arrived!

Zim forgot that Dib could be coming!
He came!
Somehow or other, he came just the same!

And Zim, who Dib pushed deep in the snow,
Sat puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
Then he got up and hit Dib square in the face!
With a snowball, to keep him right in his place
But Dib  stumbled backwards, right to the edge
And with one more step, he fell over the ledge!
But he landed safely in garbage, don't worry about him.
Instead you should worry about our hero Zim.

And what happened then...?
Well...in Detroit they say
That Zim's loose screws
Grew looser that day!
He laughed until he brose his back to a bow
Then shrieked "Christmas is dangerous! We must return it now!"
So he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!
And he...

...HE HIMSELF...!
...Zim carved the Earth-beast.

Christmas Special Reviews: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Probably rapidly becoming one of the most heavily discussed Christmas movies of all time, the live-action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas has been holding a special place in the hearts of many for years and years to come.

Normally, it's dangerous to expand too much on any given Dr. Seuss story, but somehow, this movie is written in such a way that it works far better than it should, the entire set of additional plot points weaving together to make the most interesting take on the story.  It's a story about someone who was truly abandoned by a society lost in selfish thinking, and the innocent chikd that brought him back to the society that rejected him.  The only weak part of writing is the dialogue, but many of the actors make otherwise unimpressive dialogue work really well.

Speaking of the acting, the acting in this movie is phenomenal! Talor Momsen is an usually good child actress, but nothing can top the raw energy of Jim Carrey! We should take a moment to appreciate this underrated montage?

Yep, that's his voice! All that energy is him fighting the limitationsame of his costume.  In the costume and makeup, he felt like he was being buried alive, so a CIA advisor was hired to help him deal with the sensation  of being tortured, and he put that sense into his performance.

Speaking of which, the special effects are amazing! That is something crazy prosthetics to give the Whos that Seuss look, some of the Whos looking better than the Grinch himself.

But little tops the cinematography of this movie, filled with many scenic aerial shots and tons of angular close-ups of the Grinch to match Jim Carrey's energy.

Jim Carrey's energy perfectly matches this compiled list of quotable quotes, which has turned this take into something of a cult classic!

"4:00, wallow in self-pity.  4:30, stare into the abyss.  5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one.  5:30, jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me.  I can't cancel that again.  7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing.  I'm booked.  Of course, if I bump the loathing to 9, I could still be done in time to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, and slip slowly into madness."

"If you utter so much as one syllable, I'll hunt you down and gut you like a fish! To fax me, press the star key."

If you want to see this movie, it's on Netflix to watch any time you want!

Musical Monday: Disney vs. Daleks

Today, we're going to discuss Disney's Family Christmas albums!

DALEKS: NO! ON-LY DAL-EK MU-SIC ON THIS BLOG!

No Daleks, this is Christmas, I'm aspiring to be an animator, and I say we're going to use Disney:

DALEKS: IT IS DE-CEM-BER, THE MONTH OF THE DAL-EKS, AND WE SAY DAL-EKS!!

I'm the author, and I say Disney!

DALEKS: WE ARE THE DAL-EKS, AND WE SAY DAL-EKS!!

DISNEY!!

DALEKS: DAL-EKS!!

DISNEY!!

DALEKS: DAL-EKS!!

DISNEY!!

DALEKS: DAL-EKS!!

DISNEY!!

DALEKS: ...Daleks?

...Fine.  Daleks.  You win.

The Twisted Christmas Series: Jingle Hell's Bells

And to think, this was actually performed by AC/DC!

Whosday: The Christmas Invasion

While The Dalek's Master Plan and The Unquiet Dead are both set around Christmas, the first official Doctor Who Christmas special was The Christmas Invasion, and while one can argue it might not have been the best one, it is still my personal favorite, not in the least due to a spot-on introduction of the Tenth Doctor as portrayed by David Tennant.

It's one of my favorites, though admittedly not much happens in it, besides aliens called Sycorax invading and the Tenth Doctor coming out of his regenerative bunk to defeat the Sycorax with his newfound energetic whackiness; it's relatively similar to Spearhead from Space and The Seeds of Doom.

One can get confused by a brief and pointless side-plot involving the use of robot Santas not really connected with the main invading force, but otherwise the story is serviceable.  For me, having a discernible plot, and being funny and joyous as all get-out, are enough to be a perfectly enjoyable Doctor Who story, but for many others, it's apparently seldom discussed.  Why is this? I'm actually not sure, but my best guess is that this episode remains relatively unpopular for two reasons:

Firstly, the slow pace; it doesn't have the thickest plot, so it mostly just spends a lot of time focusing on the Sycorax threatening the Earth and the Doctor being in a regenerative bunk, rather than achieving anything productive to resolve the conflict.  It isn't until close to the end when it truly gets interesting: When the Doctor finally wakes up, and David Tennant is at his David Tennant-est.

Secondly, thanks to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss in particular, Doctor Who became less about telling stories and providing characterizations that would evoke emotional responses as a result of the impact of the story and the development the characters underwent, and more about using stories and characters as devices to set up pre-determined emotional endings.

In other words, Doctor Who went from being a series that happened to be so powerful it could be a tear-jerker most of the time, to being a series that was a tear-jerker for the sake of being a tear-jerker.

Because that's the way it's been for a long time, now some fans actually prefer the idea that Doctor Who should be a tear-jerking series for its own sake, and thus they don't like episodes that aren't tear-jerkers, and this episode isn't a tear-jerker.  It's rather a story that has as much joy as you might feel when you see somebody open a present you picked just for them, and they love it.  Because most fans forget that Doctor Who was, in some ways, a series more about joy than sorrow, I think that's why this episode is the most underrated Christmas special.

Admittedly, The Runaway Bride has a much better, thicker plot than this story, which has a paper-thin plot by comparison, and A Christmas Carol is probably by far more moving, but overall, as Christmas specials go, this is a decent episode.

Musical Monday: O Come O Come Emanuel

Originally written in Latin as Veni, Veni, Emmanuel most probably in Germany in the early 1700s (though the most familiar version of the melody actually probably began in France), this song has become a Christmas staple for many generations, but it was not translated into English until 1861, by John Mason Neale, an Anglican priest.

And I am glad that he did, because it's such a beautiful song, probably my favorite Christmas song of all time.  It's so soothing, played on a haunting minor key that leaves an impact as soon as you hear it, and stays with you long afterwards.