A (Japanese) Christmas Tale

Once upon a Christmas in the magical land of Japan was an Irish girl named Ciara and it was her first Christmas away from home. In the land of her birth Christmas is a time for family, gifts, drinking alcohol and eating inordinate amounts of delicious food leading to Christmas weight gain. Luckily for Ciara her family and friends had sent her enough chocolate, cheese, crisps, cordial, jam and biscuits to completely fill her tiny fridge and her greedy stomach. Not having space for a Christmas tree she made do with a 'Christmas Corner' where presents were piled waiting for Christmas Day to be opened.

A typical Christmas Eve at home would see our little adventurer in the pub with her family getting pissed and making merry after which they would go home and eat all sorts of delicious nom noms. This Christmas Eve was slightly different; wine, tortillas and dip and Tim Tams in her Australian neighbour's apartment followed by dancing to Oppa Gangam Style.You can take the girl out of Ireland... but she'll still act like a fool when she's drunk (that's how that saying goes isn't it?)

On Christmas Eve she could barely contain her excitement for the next day waking several times during the night (which also could have been an effect of the bottle of wine) and eventually rising early to go to the city centre and get her haircut. A very Christmas-y haircut. After meeting friends and going to several bars they ventured to the Irish bar where Ciara instantly picked another Irish girl out of the crowd based purely on the fact that she had a big Irish head on her. This semi-kidnapped individual then spent Christmas night drinking with the group proving that no matter where in the world you go you will undoubtedly meet people from Ireland.

"Insert joke about Irish people and alcohol here"

It wouldn't have been Christmas in Japan without some Christmas karaoke so Ciara and her friends went to their favourite karaoke bar where there were many people dressed like Santa, two girls dressed like Hello Kitty for some unfathomable reason and a spherical Spiderman head on the bar counter filled with bath salts because... Japan. Once the singing was done and the night was over Ciara made her way home, turned on her laptop and preceded to annoy her family over Skype while they were trying to eat Christmas dinner and opened all her presents squeeling like a small child and making absolute shit of her apartment.

Seriously how could one person make so much mess?

At some point of the night she clearly decided that bed was an attractive option and successfully climbed up onto her raised bed without falling drunkenly on her ass. Her Christmas-y ass. The next day, known to some as Boxing Day, to others as St. Stephen's Day is known as The Wren's Day in her hometown and is a day of shenanigans and devilment. A day where people dress in costumes and follow marching bands around town playing traditional Irish music. On this day our Christmas heroine (yup) would usually dress like a lunatic and barrel around town with her family acting like an eejit.

I know this looks/sounds weird but trust me it's great craic

This year however she set up camp in her apartment and ate crackers, cheese, ham, grapes and relish and watched hilarious animal youtube videos all day before falling asleep only to dream of her hometown that night. It was a different Christmas than what she was used to but still thoroughly enjoyable. The End.