I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas...especially if you are a single, childless non-Christian between the ages of 16 and 30 living in Japan. Because, with the help of the Internet, I am about to make you the laughing stock of the whole world...all right, the laughing stock of my 12-person readership, by telling everyone how you spent Christmas.

You really have no business celebrating Christmas. And if you insisted on celebrating Christmas, I wouldn't be so evil if all you had done was to simply trim a tree in your workplace and string lights around your window. I would have no use for malice if all you did was play Santa's little elves and sing Christmas Carols and distribute toys in Christian missionary Children's Homes. Do you think I would be upset if you'd just bought Christmas gifts for your family and significant other? Give me some credit, I'm a bad person, but not that bad.

No, my friend, I give you this $|-| | + because I was stuck in traffic for six hours on a trip that should have taken three and a half this Christmas Eve, when I wanted to get home and get a good night's sleep before having to show up at the Workplace at eight on Christmas Day.

And it was all your fault.

You (and about 500,000 other people) were on your way to a special restaurant for a special Christmas dinner with your significant other. (This was after you and your comrades jammed the cellular phone lines trying to hook up with your partners for the evening...and I do not exaggerate, it was on the evening news that the cellular phone lines were overflowing between the hours of four and seven on December 24th...) You know, the one that the local French restaurant had advertised as the reservations only, 12,000 yen a head full course meal? The romantic, candlelit dinner...though how romantic a candlelit dinner in a restaurant packed with 25 other couples could be is anyone's guess.

Then you went out for a drive...did one of you play designated driver, or did you drive under the influence? Overlooking the skyline, boy presents girl with a thoughtful gift (an article of jewelry, perhaps?). Girl presents boy with thoughtful gift (a sweater that she knit herself, perhaps?). Then you headed for the hotel you'd booked months in advance. You didn't find the hotel in a magazine or anything. They stopped running the "nice hotels to spend a romantic Christmas" articles in 1991, because you couldn't book a nice hotel room for Christmas Eve after September 2nd, and there was something about running a "nice hotels to spend a romantic Christmas" article in the August issue. Is it true that the fancy hotels rock back and forth on their quake-proof frames on Christmas Eve? What are you doing in a hotel room on Christmas Eve anyway? What is the significance of making it into a special thing on Christmas? Don't you think it a bit, well, inappropriate (stronger words come to mind, but although I am a bad person, I am not a profane person), considering the nature of the birth being celebrated? Haven't you people heard of Valentine's Day? Go find a hotel to shake on February 14th.

I could have sworn that people who celebrated a Christmas with only two people were people who'd been disowned from their families, or were stranded on a desert island or something. It's not supposed to be a happy thing.

The craziest Christmas I have ever had was during school. A bunch of us who couldn't do the Japanese Christmas thing (it takes two :P) got together...and someone bought a cake at the pastry shop...and they put candles in the box (huh?) and so we had to turn out the lights (huh?) light the candles (huh? huh?) and blow them out (HUH??). Then there was the KFC (huh?) that one of us had reserved (huh?) a week in advance (HUH?)...To this day, I wonder how good a job I did of hiding my confusion that Christmas Eve.

But at least we didn't cause traffic congestion.