From: kenmlin@aol.com   
      
   The winter recess in Japanese schools is only two weeks and they give you   
   one week off this year and another week the next year so you have a whole   
   week to enjoy New Year.  This means that you have school until Christmas Eve   
   and they still don't have the whole month of Christmas "shopping" season   
   like America because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving over there.  (And I'd   
   be disturbed if they start celebrating Thanksgiving.)   
      
   "Bobbie Sellers"  wrote in message news:lmgbs2$adn$2@dont-email.me...   
      
     And commercialization is bad because someone makes a profit?   
      
   I like a lot of the Japanese customs like buying gifts for friends and   
   associated while traveling.  In the USA we are lucky to   
   get postcards and home travel movies or even photos or slides.  I am   
   sure that one of the purposes of the school trip is to incalculate   
   the gift buying behavior.   
      
   Valentine's Day is not taken too seriously because we don't make the   
   distinction between gifts given to respected people and gifts   
   given to loved ones.   This cuts the sales down terrifically.  If we   
   had to come up with gifts for co-workers and friends would not sales   
   expand?   
      
   But we reverse that in our Xmas celebrations and must provide   
   a gift for nearly everyone we know, while in Japan only lovers exchange   
   gifts the last I knew at the Christmas season.   
      
   We forget the spiritual importance of many holidays such as   
   Halloween or the Eve of All Saints which is not forgotten on the   
   equivalent Japanese holiday.   
   In addition to the specifically Japanese holidays they celebrate   
   the natural cycle with holidays for Solstices and Equinoctial events   
   All this seems very good to me but of course I don't live in   
   Japan so I could be wrong.   
      
   bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)