Japanese Christmas Dinner

So tonight for tea at the dormitory we had the official Christmas Dinner!
On the menu:

• Fried chicken with lettuce, tomato and lemon
• Pasta with mushrooms in some sort of sauce
• (A disturbingly yellow) Egg salad with broccoli and red peppers
• Rice with chunks of carrot
• Misu soup
• CAAAKE!!!

So, of the above meal (all of which I ate except the tomato and the soup), precisely nothing is on my standard Christmas Dinner... Kind of strange - not least because it's still the 14th of December and Christmas is 11 days away (HOLY HELL, ELEVEN DAYS?!?!?!?!).

I am considering, as I write this, returning downstairs and stealing another slice of that cake - My first cake experience in a little over three months and it was gooooooooood. Nice vanilla sponges separated by buttercream, with a strawberry coulis and white chocolate sprinkles... I'm foaming at the mouth just thinking about it.

My conclusion thus far is that Christmas Dinner in Japan, much like Christmas Day itself, is not a big deal  - in fact, a lot of folk get a KFC Christmas bucket for their lunch and have done with it - not very festive (at least by our standards). Further, Christmas in Japan is not a very family-ish sort of affair... It's all very couples-based (I saw an AKB48 poster - don't google them if you value your sanity - that said something along the lines of "lets be together this Christmas, just you and I"). Having said that, Chrimbo can be quite couple-y back home, but the focus tends to be on the family side of things.

This doesn't count as my Christmas in Japan post, it was just that I'd not done one yet this week and I figured I'd have a pop at it... Not quite as amusing as others, but hey!