feast

Christmas is just around the corner. In Japan on Christmas it's not a holiday, so probably many families are going to celebrate Christmas this week end. On 12/23 it's a holiday, "the Emperor's Birthday". So we have three-ends, though Yuki goes to work and I'm completely free.
And probably many families enjoy chickens and cake. It comes from American culture.

What is Japanese traditional feast? Probably it's OSECHI. It's a Japanese New Year's food. The colorful dishes are served in lacquer boxes called OJYU. Do you know that each dish is a kind of wish. Black beans are food for health, because the Japanese word beans, Mame, means healthy. Shrimp are for a long life because they are bent over like old people. Herring roe is for a strong family, with lots of children, because roe has has lots of eggs. And comport chestnuts are for wealth because shinning chestnuts give us an idea of Japanese old gold coins. Every osechi ryori has a special meaning.

My grandmother would tell the oprigins of osechi ryori while we were eating. Unfortunately I don't remeber all of them. We have to pass down the story from generation to generation, while we prepare it. Some families is going to buy osechi ryori like Kentacky fried chiken, some families cook, and some families go travel abroad without having osechi.