Christmas in Japan has always left a little to be desired, but you can't blame the Japanese for this -- they're merely importing the parts they like. And why not? They are quite sure God understands this. I imagine the first Japanese importer went abroad to some place like the U.S., held up a Wal-Mart store with a samurai sword and said: "Give me your entire stock of blinking lights and the sparkly trees!" He then took all the decorations back to Japan and set up pachinko parlors.

The spirit of Christmas lights has infiltrated even our little island in the Seto Inland Sea. One house on the port has taken it upon themselves to put up a huge light display in the park, complete with a Christmas tree and a "Santa and his reindeers illumination." The local bar is all decked out with strings of little white lights too. I hope we're not attracting small aircraft. Or aliens.

So when a fax came spitting out the phone the other day, I suspected it might be aliens asking for ransom money.