Ok I'm going to display a lot of my ignorance here as I know very little of Japnesse culture. Ive seen a lot of references on this site concerning Japanese holidy sales and it has me curious what holidays they are celebrating.

What drives holiday sales in Japan? I have read that only about 2 percent of Japan is Christian although some portion of the population celebrates Christmas. That seems very odd to me. Why do they celebrate Christmas? Is there some other gift giving holiday Japanese celebrate?

That's a very good question.

they don't really celebrate christmas like we do. Christmas is a holiday to spend with your girlfriend/boyfriend. The presents are actually given out for new years.

Well, half of America isn't Christian and more than 80% (random figure thrown out there) celebrate Christmas. It's just that holiday.

Thanks for clueing me in on the New Years Gifting.

It still seems odd to me that Japan would celebrate Christmas with so few Christians in the country to popularize the holiday. Others celebrating Christmas in the US is more understandable. After all many colonists were protestant Christains escaping religious persecution. It was entreched as a hoilday before its comercializtion allowed itself to be spread to others.

I'm Agnostic BTW in case your wondering.

As I've mentioned once before in a thread here on VGChartz, Christmas in Japan is a bit different from in America. The major religion in Japan is Buddhism and Shinto, so Christmas is more commercial event. The main celebration revolves around Christmas eve and not Christmas day, actually. Japanese people often celebrate Christmas Eve by eating Christmas cake as well.

In Japan it is common to give Christmas presents. Within the family parents give presents to their children, but the children do not give presents to the parents. The reasoning behind this is that only Santa bring presents, so once the children no longer believe in Santa the presents are no longer given.

Most Japanese families would have a Christmas tree and now it is becoming very common to have lights on the outside of houses as you would see in Australia.

Christmas is more and more about Coca-cola, not Christianity. But I wouldn't know about Japan.

Kruze, Santa actually got his red color from a Coca-Cola commercial way back when.

Actually, he didn't. Santa mainly appeared in red long before Coca-Cola was even a company. Before that (mid 19th century and earlier), he appeared in a multitude of colors depending on the artist and culture.

Coca-Cola is credited with standardizing the design of jolly ol' Saint Nick, though. Before that time, he had several different looks.

No, that fact is repeated ad infinitum.

I guess that when it gets cold outside, you have nothing better to do than stay inside and play video games.