December and Christmas: Even in non-Christian Japan, the two go together as naturally as holly and ivy. In fact, December in Tokyo can sometimes seem almost as Christmassy as December in Rome. Christmas trees appear on street corners and in store windows. Garlands and wreaths, tinsel and red candles abound. Vendors do a roaring trade in Stollen and kurisumasu keeki. Teams of jolly Santa Clauses materialize. And everywhere the tinkling, chiming ding-a-linging of Christmas carols fills the air. Whatever else it may be here on Christmas Eve, it is not "Silent Night."
This seasonal compulsion to break out the Christmas music can be maddening. How often can one endure a piped Muzak version of "We Three Kings" or "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" before one's spirit of good will frays and dwindles into unseasonal rage? The impetus for it all is, of course, understandable. It is all about commerce. Those supermarkets, department stores and shopping centers are clearly hoping that the festive Christmas songs will warm our hearts to the point where we want to open our wallets wider. And many people probably do. Otherwise, presumably, the retailers would realize they were driving customers away and shut down the cacophony.
Still, the Christmas mass-music phenomenon is annoying, and not only for those who aren't Christian and won't really celebrate the holiday anyhow. In a way, it is even worse for those who do hold Christian convictions and realize that the relentless annual chorus actually stands in utter contradiction to the Christmas story.