Here’s a hilarious D&D Christmas cartoon making the rounds of the usual Internets sources. I came across it while Googling the terms “gank” and “manger” for a special Christmas demotivational poster. The video distracted me from the task, but it’s funnier than anything I could have come up with anyway.
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You can purchase prints of this illustration or download the image as a desktop wallpaper from the artist’s website .
Source: Rob Sheridan’s SketchBlog
With Christmas swiftly closing in and Japanese Culture Thursday stretching before me, I began wondering. How do the Japanese celebrate Christmas? The answer is, of course, they don’t. 84% of Japanese people profess to believe in both Shinto and Buddhist precepts, whereas less than 1% of the population practices Christianity. I still have a hard time believing our western culture hasn’t rubbed off at least a little on the Japanese, though. So, I ran a Google search for Japanese Christmas traditions, and came up with some interesting results:
The Western holiday that carries the most influence in Japan is, not surprisingly, the holiday that carries the most influence in 
the West as well: Christmas. Although St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, brought Santa Cross Christianity to Japan in 1549, the celebration of Christmas was mostly limited to churches and missionary schools until the 20th century. (Indeed, Christianity was outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639 and henceforth practiced only clandestinely until 1854.) The exchanging of gifts at Christmastime by Japanese families began in a small way early this century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. Starting with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Christianity enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, and Christmas took off in a big (and commercialized) way.
As you’d expect in a country where less than 1% of the population is Christian (the rest is primarily Shinto or Buddhist), Christmas is a purely secular occasion, with shops and businesses remaining open for the day. The Japanese have adopted many of the traditional trappings of ‘Kurisumasu’: stores with elaborate displays of Christmas decorations and piped-in Christmas music, and homes made festive with Christmas lights, Christmas trees, and poinsettias. The elimination of the religious aspects of Christmas and its hyper-commercialization have led to some unique (and, to us, bizarre) ways of celebrating it, however.
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There are only twenty days to Christmas, and it’s time to gear up, if you haven’t already! And of course, being a hardcore Geek, you have to do it right!
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