I will introduce how Christmas and New year days in Japan, at least to me.
As many people know Christianity is obviously not a majority religion in Japan and I am not discussing which religion are important or not, we still have a culture to celebrate Christmas.
The case one is with your family, which can be applied to younger children holding families. At home Kentucky Fried Chicken aka KFC has been a very popular shop to bring chickens which can sound a bit alike to the Christmas cuisine. Then many shops also try to sell cakes with young boys/girls wearing Santa Claus costumes. And yes, we also have the present. Till 5-8 years old, kids believe that presents were given by Santa Claus, which are actually their parents. Many kids realize that they are parents because they hear through their friends that Santa Claus must be their parents by the ratio of 48% according to the survey.
The case two is with own lover/husband/wife. In many cities they decorate with a lot of lights which look very beautiful and romantic. Lovers would think they would like to make a visit there at the Christmas eve, and the Christmas day. In Japan Christmas eve tends to be taken more important as well as in many other countries. But nowadays couples changed their thought that they wanna celebrate the Christmas day at home with their lover. It is the same phenomena that many couples nowadays prefer "dating at home".
The case three is celebrating or not caring that it is the Christmas day and spend time together with friends, or co-workers. I personally celebrate Christmas with family whenever I can, but still I tend to make a lot of parties before or on the Christmas day, sometimes with exchanging presents. It is good for people who don't have their lover, or person who cannot access their lover then - to intercept the happy couples scenery.
The case four can be also very popular; just going out to work. When I was a university student I often talked about the Christmas day's schedule with school mates who didn't have a lover, and most of us just worked part-time on the day as it is the busy term for sales. 3 times in 4 years of my university days, I went to the midnight-morning shift on the Christmas days, and also postponed the Christmas celebration of family.
Okay, long to say this is the Christmas costume for Japanese people. After that the new year celebration is coming, which is said more important to Japanese people. Of course it depends on individuals, and families though. The reason why the new year is more important is that this is the tradition, not only the commercial celebration which Christmas stands for in Japan. I think the new year can be also very commercial selling "Fuku Bukuro" (a lucky bag, contains a lot of stuff with the fixed and reasonable price but you don't know what they are before you buy and open it.) and the new year sales which is bigger bargain than Christmas ones. On the new year day we also make a visit to shrines and temples to pray for fortune such as families's safety/health, success on studies/business, etc. One tip, it may be a bit out of manners, but this year I wished a good coupling discover myself and threw 5 yen coin to the pod at shrine. Why? Because 5 yen is pronounced "Go en" in Japanese, which also means "emotional ties" which means a new meeting with a good person. See? We like this kind of word plays and make it reason. After the new year pray, I often visit relatives for saying thank about the last year's treat and relationship and also ask for another year's bond with them. This is the foam, and then we often make a party with a lot of food, and drinks. People tend to gain weight in this season as people work out less because of the coldness outside, and a lot of food/drinks. We often make "Mochi" which is rice cake - far to say a cake to me, but it is food. It is one kind of rice, and when it is beaten many times with right amount of water, it makes a figure. But pay attention, every year this mochi can be stuck at elderlies throat and some of them die. You just need to make it the right size and chew many enough times.
So, this was the first post from a guy from Tokyo. I personally have visited Finland at the prior-Christmas time fortunately and my host family actually gave me a chance to experience that. :) From my side it was really interesting and food was good and so on. The concept that I wanted to describe a thing about Japan is that some of you from Finland may get interested in the Japanese custom about the Christmas and new year by contraries.
Christmas decoration. Roppongi Hills, Tokyo