Some thoughts on this, my first Japanese Christmas Eve:

1. My stalker student made me a Christmas card, something I discouraged quite vigorously when he proposed it in our Christmas-card-making class. A snippet of the conversation:

Creepy Kid: Excuse me! Who should I give this card to?
Me: One of your friends. Anyone.
Creepy Kid: How about YOU?
Me: (gesturing wildly around the room) No! Give it to someone in the class.
Creepy Kid: I see...

Later, when I peeked over his shoulder and saw what he was writing, I knew it was all over. This is it in its entirety:

I wish your good Chritmas
You are very kindness and pretty.
Your classes is the best subject anything else.
I send poem just for you!

P.S. Take care your health.

I especially like the indignant tone of "If you think like that, where is he now?" It almost sounds like an atheist questioning a hardcore Christian. "Where is your Santa Claus god now?!"

Also, when he came to the office to give me my card, he said, "Shall I read it to you?" and I said, "NO!" and took it from him. He seemed quite ruffled.

2. My school's bonenkai (end-of-year party) was on Thursday and it was great. I sat next to the man in charge of school lunches, who had previously expressed surprise at the fact that I always order the school lunch and therefore eat Japanese food every day. Apparently my predecessor was more picky. On Thursday night, he was in for a real shock: not only did I know the proper drink-pouring etiquette (never pour your own drinks and top off the drinks of everyone around you before they have a chance to empty their glasses), I also drank Japanese beer AND ate all the Japanese food served at the dinner! Every time a teacher stopped by to fill his glass, he'd point at me and say something like, "Fill her glass too. She drinks!"

By the end of the night, he had pronounced me "charming," "pretty" and "fascinating," and expressed the wish that I work at their school "forever." (Much of this was translated to me by the various English teachers who stopped by.) He also said he would propose to me if he was thirty years younger. And he wanted to sing a karaoke duet with me, but we didn't know any the same songs.

You know what I like about Japan? The fact that you can be deemed utterly charming by just drinking a lot and eating all the food on your plate.

3. Let's say you were all alone on Christmas Eve, but really really wanted to eat Christmas cake because it combines all your favorite dessert elements and you don't think it will be so easy to get at the store at any other time of the year. If you bought the sponge cake and whipping cream and strawberries and decorated a whole Christmas cake just for yourself to eat alone on Christmas Eve, would that be sad?

What if it looked like this?

I think it would be perfectly understandable.

(I didn't eat the whole thing.)