Letter's from Tokyo #4 - Christmas in Japan
It’s Christmas.
I’ve always liked Christmas. Not just the day itself, but the stretch of time around it, especially the lead up to it. As a musician in the UK, it was never something that began and ended on the 25th. There were concerts and carol services stretching from late November right up to Christmas Day.
And it didn’t end there. Christmas Day was just the first of twelve. It was a period of time you lived inside, rather than passed through. Christmas Day was a marker, not a finale. There were always days still to come. I’m writing this on the fifth day of Christmas, with the line “five gold rings” lodged firmly in my head. (If you know, you know!)
In Japan, Christmas arrives differently. There’s no gradual build-up — other than Wham’s Last Christmas on perpetual loop in shops and cafés — and then suddenly it’s the 25th. Decorations come down immediately to be replaced by New Year’s displays. Offices stay open. Shops carry on. Some schools don’t close at all. The calendar barely shifts.
Christmas here feels borrowed. New Year doesn’t.
Christmas in Japan is decorative rather than devotional. It’s something put on briefly and removed without ceremony. There’s no obligation attached to it; it’s purely commercial. I understand that now, and I’ve stopped expecting it to be anything else.
Christmas Eve, in particular, has become something else entirely. It’s closer to Valentine’s Day than a family gathering — a night for couples, reservations, and careful planning. Restaurants book out. Hotels fill up. It’s efficient, contained, and over quickly.
New Year, by contrast, is treated with weight. Between the 29th of December and the 3rd or January, work stops. Schedules empty. People clean their homes, settle accounts, and prepare themselves — practically and mentally — for the year ahead. It isn’t indulgent, but it is deliberate. Japan takes endings seriously, even if celebrations are brief.
I’ve made peace with the difference. I know what I chose, and what the price of staying has been. Still, every December, I notice the absence. Not sharply — just clearly. I miss how Christmas used to feel. I miss living inside a shared stretch of time, knowing what day it was without having to check, trusting that the world had slowed down with me.
That feeling doesn’t come back here. And I don’t chase it anymore. But I recognise it when it passes through my thoughts, like a tune I once knew well enough to play without thinking — and now remember only when the season turns. It reminds me where I’ve been, even as I stay where I am.
So, wherever you are in the world, however you’re celebrating, and whoever you’re with, wishing you a belated Merry Christmas and the very best wishes for the year ahead.
Sincerely,
Ross Harrison - Tokyo-based photographer working with couples who want to experience Japan quietly and honestly.
Letters from Tokyo is a personal writing series reflecting on life lived here.