Reutter Life in Japan

Entering into a new year is always a special time, and that couldn’t be any more true than it is in Japan. We enter into a new year with lots of hopes and expectations (good and bad) about what the year to come will bring. Only at the end of the year can we truly look back and see the year for what it really was. And when we look back at 2022, what a roller-coaster year it was!

But when you talk about the New Year in Japan, you have to consider the fact that it is one of their biggest holidays. People go back to their hometowns to spend the holidays with their family. They eat special traditional meals that are full of meaning. In many ways, it reminds me of Thanksgiving in America, and shares many of the same aspects. This new year we tried the traditional Japanese meal, or Osechi, for the first time. The results were interesting.

In this video, we unintentionally did the major no-no in Japanese culture, which is passing food via chopsticks from one person to another. The reason? The only time you do that is at a certain type of funeral in Japan! And such is learning a new culture. You will make mistakes along the way, but the important thing is to learn from your mistakes and keep on learning!

We’ve lived in Japan over 8 years, and just in this short time we’ve seen Christmas grow each year, which is great because we love Christmas. Months before Christmas comes, we start planning the celebrations that we’ll have: Paz Candlelight services, family coming into town, Christmas decorations going up and big meals. It’s all a part of our holiday celebrations in Japan.

It’s only been a couple of months since our move, and we’re still getting settled into our new life here in the apartment. But Ruth made our place look like a million bucks by decorating it all for Christmas. With us settled in, it was time to finally do our official tour of our Japanese apartment, decorations and all.

While Japan is not our native country, it’s become our home. And one of the things we enjoy doing is exploring this place we call home. Living in the greater Tokyo area means that there is no shortage of things to see and do, but recently we had an excursion to nearby Harajuku that was like no other… and once you see it, you know why — it’s crazy!

Unpredictable excursions are one thing, but with our older girls turning 13, we wanted to celebrate big — and know that it would be great. To do so, we asked them what they wanted to do, and they answered: roller coasters!!

Fall in Japan brings changes to living indoors and outdoors, inside and out. Some changes are obvious: cooler weather, fall colors and bundling up as you head out. Other changes are less obvious. Because Japan gets cool but not cold (it rarely goes below freezing near Tokyo), the homes around here don’t have central heating. That means you warm things up by turning on the air conditioner, taking a hot bath, or by bundling up.

This year we decided to take a traditional Japanese approach to dealing with the cold indoors — a self-heating Kotatsu table. At first, we weren’t quite sure how the kids would respond to this surprise, but it only took the first cool day to know for sure.

Kotatsu is great indoors, but outdoors things really get beautiful in the fall. Over the past few years my friends and I have begun a tradition of sorts — hiking a new place in Japan and enjoying the fall scenery. This year we went to a record-breaking place in Japan, and the result was a long but very satisfying excursion to one of Japan’s tallest peaks. It just so happened to take us through Japan’s highest bus stop along the way.

But probably the outdoor highlight of living in Japan during the fall are the Fall colors. It’s not just me that feels that way, the Japanese have a word devoted to Fall colors: 紅葉 (kouyou). Parks hold special festivals. Mountain highways pack out with scenic-loving travelers. Hot drinks and soups become all the rage. And this year we really were able to get in on the action.

Yes, Fall is a beautiful time in Japan. And the end of Fall brings about one of the most fun times of the year — Christmas and New Years. Yes, it’s just around the corner, and this year our Paz Church is planning our biggest Christmas Party ever! There will be three separate events on Sunday, December 25. So plan to join us online or in-person. It’s going to be awesome!

As I woke up this morning, I brewed a hot cup of coffee for Ruth and me and then took mine outside on the balcony to watch the sun come up over our neighborhood. With fall colors all around and the crisp morning air, I started to thank God for all of the blessings in our lives. Our family, our home, our relationships, our church, our community, our kids, my wife, our extended family, for our Life in Japan community, our supporters and the more I thanked the Lord the more thankful I became! We really have so much to be thankful for.

I’ve heard it said, “If you focus inward you’ll be depressed, if you focus outward you’ll be stressed, but if you focus on God you’ll be blessed.” I really couldn’t agree more. When we look past all of what we want and don’t have, when we look past all of our temporary circumstances we find that true thankfulness is a result of knowing God, his love and acceptance, and knowing his son Jesus Christ.

There’s a wooden plaque in our house that says “Every good and perfect gift is from above.” It’s taken from the Bible in James 1:17, and reminds us the truth that everything that we consider good or lovely ultimately comes as a gift from our loving Heavenly Father. God is good and desires good for us. How important to hold onto this truth more than ever, as there is so much that is not good in this world due to all of our poor decisions we as humans make. Nonetheless, God still loves us and that love is the bedrock of our thankfulness.