Christmas Eve

December 31, 2007

Right before Christmas Eve, I suddenly ran out of things to do. It was a peculiar feeling. I had been rushing along, quite content, through the last week of school, when, bam!, I finished all my work. My house was clean, my decorations were up, my presents were shipped and sent and I had nothing to do.

It was a little scary.

When a holiday comes up, you want to celebrate it, or at the very least keep busy. I learned that my first Easter at college, when I decided to work in the cafeteria rather than go home to see my family. Big mistake! I was so depressed that day I felt like crying.

Now, I had Christmas Eve and Christmas day off, but I had no one to celebrate with. In the absence of work, I began to feel a tugging of loneliness. So I made a list of things to do, and then I did them. Guess what? I wasn’t so lonely after that.

On Christmas Eve, I woke up bright and moderately early (it was about 8:00) and went grocery shopping. (Yes, this was part of my big plan to keep myself occupied.) To keep myself in the Christmas mood, I only went shopping for Christmas dinner—no rice, olive oil, tofu, creamer, cereal—none of that allowed. Just Christmas food. Then I went to Tsutaya to rent a video.

Tsutaya is basically like Blockbusters, except that it also sells books and has a vastly larger foreign selection. But the dates and prices are about the same. I opened an account. Funny, but I hadn’t had the urge to rent movies before—if I had some extra time on the weekend, I’d go exploring. But with the weather getting increasingly cold, I’ve been less inclined to explore. Better to stay home and watch a flick.

After I decided on Shrek the Third (I’ve begun to associate Shrek with the holidays, for some reason) and Notes on a Scandal, I did some light shopping. I tried to find thank you notes and a particular comic, I wanted, but the store didn’t carry any cards I liked and the comic I wanted wasn’t out yet. By this time, it was around noon. I had lunch at a local coffee shop.

At Café the Launch (yes, that’s its real name), I had a pudding latte with whipped cream (that I had to pay extra for) and an (supposedly) Italian sandwich and Onion Gratin soup. I should stop and explain these items to you. The pudding latte was not exactly pudding flavored, but rather the coffee was served with actual pieces of a flan-like pudding inside it. (But since I’d had “jelly” drinks with actual pieces of Jell-O inside it, I wasn’t all that surprised.) I felt a little cheated at having to pay extra for whipped cream, but it was the thick, homemade kind, the kind they squirt from one of those pastry bags. There are no arsenal cans of whipped cream in Japan—you get the good stuff or none at all. The Italian sandwich was a hot basil chicken sandwich, but for some reason they put on cream cheese instead of provolone or mozzarella. I’m not sure why. It was good, but a little weird. The Onion Gratin was almost French Onion. Almost, but not quite. The crouton was a toasted piece of French bread and there wasn’t enough cheese.

Normally I don’t go out for “American” food, but once in a while I get nostalgic and attempt it anyway.

I bought a little bouquet of flowers for myself and I bought a slice of an Apple Chiffon cake—the closest I could get to pie. I had wanted to get a Christmas cake—which are so popular in Japan—but a tiny cake that could feed four at most and would have cost maybe $5 in America were going for 2300 yen—over four times the price. So I opted out.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Shrek the Third. In the evening, I made stuffing and pumpkin with cinnamon, honey, and cream, for my Christmas dinner. Then I did the dishes and went to bed.

And that was my Christmas Eve.