Thanks to Jonny who brought us some festive fare from England which we had with my in laws. This explains it:

I also fed the mince pies to some of my students but, in general, our Christmas goodies - mince pies, pudding and cake - are a bit too rich and stodgy for the Japanese palate but they did seem to try to appreciate them. They ought to, traditional Japanese Christmas dinner is a Kentucky Bucky!

If you look carefully you can see that I made an effort at MERRY CHRISTMASing, although the christmas dinner I cooked was without Turkey, bread sauce, parsnips or cranberry sauce. There are sprouts here but we decided not to. Mind you we did cook bouillabaisse, roast potatoes , coq au vin and sausages with bacon wrapped around. So I was happy there. I even made brandy butter which I ended up eating it all myself with the mince pies left over from my "christmas special" class.