Saturday 17 December 2016

Winter Holidays

December 17, 2016

The Blog Link Up Party's topic for this week and next week is Winter Holidays.  I am not sure if I will post next week as I will be celebrating the season with my special someone, but will post a few cards today.

Japan is fairly new to the Christmas thing.  It is not a Christian country and as such, celebrates Christmas mostly as a secular event with Santa Claus.  For many people, the ideal Christmas Dinner is KFC and indeed, the KFC outlets are very busy in December with people booking their buckets of chicken for their family's meal.  Christmas decorations often come down on Christmas day. I tended to work Christmas Day during my first few years here and one of the saddest things I saw happened during my lunch.  I was in a little restaurant near my work and the staff were taking down the Christmas tree as I watched, on Christmas Day.

Not surprisingly, there are Gotochi cards for Christmas time.  I have one!  Below is the card for 2014. After spending some time scanning the Posta Collect website, it looks like the same design was also used for 2015 and I haven't seen the design for this year.  It wasn't on the website.

Japanese Snowmen only have two parts, in Canada we have three.
How about in your country, if you have snow?

I found this card when I was shopping in Sendai earlier this year.  I haven't sent it yet, I'm waiting for the right person to come along for it.  I think it is very cute.

Hi! I'm Back!!
I love the food he has...the long negi in his hand, and the garlic and probably
onions in the bag! 

I don't often receive Christmas Cards, but I did just receive one this week from Sweden.  I'll feature it as usual later, but as it survived a long journey and came out scarred I think it deserves to be shown here too.  

Merry Christmas
Happy New Year

Thank you so much for visiting.  I hope that you have a Happy Holiday and that 2017 is a wonderful year for you.  Thanks for viewing my Blog Linky Party entries this year.




8 comments:

Mail Adventures said...

Not a surprise, but it's always nice to see the infinite Gotochi cards they issue.

I love especially the card from Uppsala. I was there some years ago, in the summer. I really loved that place, and I can't help by wondering if I would equally loved in the cold winter...

Helen said...

Thanks for visiting Eva! There are so many Gotochi cards, I wonder if they will ever run out of ideas for them.

I'm glad I posted the Uppsala card then. I was debating whether I should or not last night. I'll post more about it in a few days/weeks, so stay tuned!

John's Island said...

Hi Helen, Thanks for sharing these neat cards. I am learning that you have quite the collection! Thank you for mentioning www.postacollect.com. This is my first time to see that site and they sure have some nice things on there. Another temptation! :-) Also interesting to learn about KFC in Japan. I do see a lot of Asians in my local KFC but would not have guessed it would be so popular there. Thanks for sharing. I hope you and yours have a fine Christmas holiday.

Helen said...

Thank you John. I am glad that you liked my cards and the information I posted!

I think that KFC is popular because many Japanese families don't have ovens. Fried Chicken at Christmas seems to be the substitute for the North American Roasted Turkey!

I appreciate your good wishes for the holiday! And back to you too :-)

Joy said...

In the UK we have two part snowmen as well, three I'd never thought of, but then Canada wouldn't be short of the material to make them:) I like how Japan usually includes a post box.

Helen said...

Thanks Joy! I couldn't remember making snowmen when I lived in the UK, so I wasn't sure.

Thanks for commenting today.

Maria said...

Hi Helen, thanks for sharing a gotochi Christmas card. The rest of course are much appreciated. I wish you a lovely Christmas weekend with your special someone.

PS. In PH, we keep the Christmas decorations until at least the first week of January.

Helen said...

Thank you Maria!

In Canada, we often leave our Christmas decorations up until the New Year too. Many Canadians also celebrate Orthodox Christmas as well, so that is in the New Year.

We usually don't take it down ON Christmas day though!