Namiko Abe is a Japanese language teacher and translator, as well as a Japanese calligraphy expert. She has been a freelance writer for nearly 20 years. The New Year (shogatsu) is the biggest and most important celebration in Japan. Christmas is not even a national holiday, although December 23 is, because of the Emperor's birthday. However, the Japanese love to celebrate festivals and have adopte
![Singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in Japanese](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/09c26bfe6cd70b48d4fe834dacde2e4043f7f527/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thoughtco.com%2Fthmb%2FZp77HvTAfuI_VWAYSrzv8MJnP7Y%3D%2F1500x0%2Ffilters%3Ano_upscale%28%29%3Amax_bytes%28150000%29%3Astrip_icc%28%29%2FGettyImages-182343698-5c5fa1bac9e77c000159c499.jpg)