December 24, 2005

It's Christmas Eve in Tokyo. I slept in super uber late today. I got up just in time to have a shower and head out the door to meet LeeAnne and Paul in Kita. We took the Toyo in to Akihabara where Paul was getting their comp upgraded so he can run some spiffy electronic music making software extravaganza. While we were waiting for him LeeAnne and I found a random stuffed hamster that when you pull the tail he vibrates. There's an inside joke about rats and vibrating cell phones. We had to get the hamster for Paul. After Akihabara, which LeeAnne and I both hate, we headed to Shibuya to try and find the Canadian restaurant. I was hoping that they would have turkey dinner cause they had it for Christmas. Without too much effort and only one slightly wrong turn we found it and discovered that they actually have turkey dinner every day, all day, for the whole month of December. This really is the great thing about Tokyo. We were discussing it over dinner. What other major international city, particularly in Asia, particularly in a (until quite recently) very closed nation to outsiders, would you find a Canadian restaurant. For all the complaining that I do about the Japanese being closed to all that is foreign, Tokyo has got the market cornered on international cuisine. So we had a totally fabulous dinner with a tonne of gravy (just ask Paul if the gravy was any good, he slurped it off the plate) and sat and talked and played with Paul's new Christmas present...Origami, the vibrating hamster. We named him.

After dinner we headed to Roppongi to walk around on our way to the church. We found the Lambourgini/Audi dealership. Pretty cars. LeeAnne has now discovered another weakness of mine. Pretty, fast cars. We found the church which is pretty much right across the road from Tokyo Tower. It was a really nice service. The church has been having services there since like 1874, or maybe it was 1879, close enough. It's pretty small, but not tiny. It's made all out of round wood beams. It was actually quite West Coast looking. It felt like home. It's Anglican/Episcopalian so it was a super traditional Eucharist service. It was just what we were looking for. We were barely into the service when the reading was Isaiah 9 and it talks about "those who were in darkness have seen a great light". That has been my intense prayer for so long. I started to cry. That was it for the rest of the service. Through the sermon the minister told a story of a reporter who was in Bosnia in the early 90's. He was at a Christmas service in the basement of a church where there was no room to sit and no heat. The point of his preaching was that "No matter what, Life is still worth living". The minister reiterated that thought through the story and of course I cried. The music was lovely and I loved hearing the organ and a choir. It was traditional and beautiful.

After I got home I made some Rice Krispie treats for myself and put some out for a friend as a Christmas morning surprise.

It's interesting to think of what Christmas is. When all of the external celebrations and traditions are stripped away what is the point of the season. The noble answer of those in North America usually includes things like family, loved ones, good food, being aware of your blessings and sometimes other random traditions (like giving money / help to the poor, praying for peace) that get tacked on to the end. Those are all good things, but with nothing around me this year that points to the reason for Christmas (all there is, is tacky decorations, a push for more consumerism in the retail world, really bad Christmas music, and of course, KFC and to the Japanese this is Christmas) I am aware of what Christmas means to me. I always hate Christmas time back home, and that's only because I really love Christmas. I hate seeing all the external things that people try to make it and everyone seems to get it wrong. I would be perfectly happy if the Christmas season lasted like a week. I don't think we need any more time than that. It is nice to have everything stripped away so that I can make Christmas what it is to me. I have been made aware this year of the need to return to God and be aware of the coming of Christ. Christmas is a time to remember that He came in order to fulfill what God required of Him to make things right between man and God. Christmas points directly to the sacrifice honoured at Easter time. Without Easter, Christmas becomes pointless and just as meaningful as any other "religious" holiday meant to honour some good person or prophet. What has been important to me this year as I celebrate on my own is a renewing of my faith that He is God, He came to get rid of all my Sin (and that isn't specific bad things I do and think, that's the main nature of myself as a fallen person), He is the only thing that is good. Mum is right that Christmas is to be a time to celebrate that and so then you have to ask the question, what does that celebration look like? Many people have very definite ideas about how Christmas should be celebrated and I want to put my two cents in that it doesn't matter what you do. He doesn't care if you have a perfect tree, a holiday tree, a Charlie Brown tree, or any tree at all. He cares that your heart is being drawn to Himself. Everything else, and everyone else can go blow it all out their arse cause it doesn't make one bit of difference to your salvation or to His Godliness. Do what you want to celebrate, but don't make the celebration the point or your focus. That's pointless. Which is why the Christmas season this year for me has been 3 days and that's it, cause it doesn't really matter what I do or eat or the people that I see, those are all nice and fine and extra bonus good things but they aren't the point.