As Bath boasts a distinctly oriental flavour with its contribution to the nationwide festival of Japan 2001, former Bath resident KATE HINDER ponders the real significance of Christmas over here and Kentucky Fried Chicken over there...

THE shops have been selling tree decorations since mid-October, homes are lit up like the Queen Mum's birthday cake, and trying to get a parking space at Toys R Us on a Sunday is like taking part in an episode of Endurance indeed, if it weren't for the trains running on time, I'd swear I was back at home.

Ah yes, Christmas in Japan. Now there's a contradiction. As Japan is a Buddhist and Shinto country, it doesn't officially celebrate Christ's birthday. But that doesn't stop it having a damn good try in its own inimitable way, of course.

To use a seasonal metaphor, Christmas in Japan is a beautifully wrapped gift with nothing inside. Like so many other things over here, form matters more than substance.

Sure, there's the same relentless build-up as back home, the same exhortations to part with your cash, the same anodyne renderings of Joy to the World in the supermarkets and the same jolly Santa San (that's Father Christmas to you and me).

Most people have artificial trees in their homes, and many children receive presents. But then, come December 25, it's business as usual. Salary men go to work, kids go to school, post gets delivered, public transport runs, banks and shops are open. And there's no Great Escape on the telly.

Japan's version of Christmas epitomises what this country excels at: taking an idea and modifying it to suit its own tastes.

Sometimes inexplicably.

For example: should you ever find yourself in Japan on December 25 and be overcome with a strange yen (geddit?) for that most traditional of Christmas fare, er, Kentucky Fried Chicken, you should be advised that you may have to wait a long time to receive your box of delights from The Colonel.

For some unfathomable reason, KFC is THE place to be on Christmas Day. There are queues around the block. I guess at least that with this Christmas dinner, you know you'll be saved from eating chicken drumstick sarnies come December 28. And, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the sound of turkeys singing Gloria in Excelsis thousands of miles away.

But the Japanese festive food that takes the biscuit is Christmas cake. In a country that's a stranger to marzipan, Christmas cake equals a sponge with cream and strawberries inside. You ALWAYS buy it from a shop. And it costs £12. Now that can't be right.

Not that it doesn't look delicious. But a whole country has been denied the pleasure on Christmas Eve of sticking little figures into icing after a few too many Advocaats, leaving everyone to wonder the next day why Santa is wearing a reindeer on his head.

At least Japan's Christmas spares one the trials with the in-laws. It's not really a time for families they get their turn at New Year, the biggie. No, it's an occasion for couples, who go on Christmas dates.

According to this quaint tradition, boy and girl go to a restaurant for a fancy meal, and then on to a Love Hotel to celebrate a bit more.

Love Hotels are designed for people who want some privacy they can't get at home, (or the office, or the car). You can rent rooms by the hour, and ever discreet, there's an automated system for paying. Rooms (apparently) come fully equipped with supplies for festive frolicking. Let's face it, it certainly beats watching Noel's Christmas Presents.

The complete absence of any attempt to accommodate or to understand the true meaning of Christmas is both depressing and refreshing. Japan just ain't interested in any of that peace on Earth lark.

This will be my second pre-Christmas in a foreign country. I say pre-Christmas, as, like last year, I shall be making a Great Escape of my own next week, to sunnier climbs.

I miss that British festive build-up: bottom-photocopying antics at the office bash, check-out girls with tinsel in their hair, shifty-looking blokes flogging Santa hats for a pound outside Boots.

I guess the third candle on the Blue Peter advent crown will soon be lit, and the papers will be full of stories about singing turkeys. Oh the humanity.

So bring on the mince pies, Carols from Kings, brandy butter, nativity plays, Slade, tangerines, midnight mass, sprouts, family feuds over Trivial Pursuit, selection boxes, falling asleep in front of The Sound of Music, five-mile tailbacks to Cribbs Causeway, overdrafts, cheap, regrettable encounters at the works party, novelty slippers, and stuffing.

And a merry Christmas to you one and all.