What Do Christmas And Japanese New Year Have In Common?

4. Sweet Alcohol

We associate both Christmas and Yule with drinking alcohol in the West, and the drinks associated with Christmas tend to be sweet – sherry, mulled wine, brandy, wassail etc. New Year is a time for drinking alcohol in Japan as well, often in the form of the weak, sweet form of rice wine called amazake. Alcohol is considered sacred Shinto as it is in many religions, and anything flavoured with sugar or spices could be considered a suitable offering for deities in days of old due to the comparative scarcity of these ingredients. In both festivals, I think the drinking of sweet alcohol is a way of saluting the gods.