What Do Christmas And Japanese New Year Have In Common?

8. Family Feasts

The Christmas dinner is typically the largest and most expensive home meal that British households will eat during the year. This is also true of the meal eaten by the Japanese on New Year’s Day, which is known as osechi ryōri. Osechi ryōri will contain rare delicacies such as red sea bream, black beans covered in gold leaf and lobster. Each of the ingredients has a special meaning, which usually derives from its appearance or a play on words. For example, prawns are eaten because their curved bodies and antennae are suggestive of an old man with a beard, so they symbolise long life. The word for sea bream in Japanese, tai, sounds like the ending of the word for “rejoice,” medetai. One important difference between the British Christmas dinner and the Japanese Osechi is that increasing numbers of Japanese get their osechi delivered rather than preparing it themselves. It would be fairly unthinkable to get take-away Christmas dinner in your average British household. But in both cases, the banquets eaten at the British Christmas and Japanese New Year serve to help the family bond and to wish for good health.