A Very Japanese Thanksgiving

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!

You may be wondering about Thanksgiving in Japan, whether it is celebrated at all, and if so, how? Luckily for you, when you got questions, I got answers. Just call me Radio Shack!

As it turns out, there is a Japanese version of Thanksgiving: November 23 is "Labour Thanksgiving Day", a national holiday for honouring labour. So think of it as a socialist thanksgiving! ;)

The Japanese do not eat turkey on their Thanksgiving, or on the American one (well, Japanese who have spent time in America might, but it is not a popular thing). Luckily for Americans in Japan, I found that import grocery stores do stock a few frozen birds around our Thanksgiving.

So how did Lyani and I celebrate Thanksgiving? Well, we actually felt up to a turkey dinner, but I could not find pre-cooked turkey meat at any of the grocery stores in our area, and we had neither the time nor the oven to roast a frozen bird. So we ended up having a somewhat non-traditional feast: grilled-cheese sandwiches (with imported red cheddar cheese from New Zealand!), Campbell's tomato soup, and Lay's Sour Cream & Onion potato chips. While we enjoyed these fixin's, we watched an episode of "The X-Files" from Season Nine. Spooky!