Christmas traditions in Japan: the Christmas tree

Do Japanese people put up Christmas trees? Yes some people do, but I don't think Christmas trees in a home are as common as my home country of Ireland. I personally known quite a few people, especially of the older generation, who don't put up a Christmas tree. But I also know many families who do put up a tree. Thankfully most of the shopping malls and many shops do put up large Christmas trees annually. One pictured below.

The tree pictured is quite large, but that is the exception not the rule. A big difference in the Christmas trees here is the size. They are much smaller, especially ones in homes. Most of the Christmas trees in my children's friends houses aren't even half the size of our Christmas tree. We have an artificial 1.8 meter tree. We had a much larger one in the past, purchased in Costco, but it proved too difficult to store. It was 2 meters high, but it was also a lot fuller and more difficult to pack away. Thus we switched to a smaller one a few years ago, bought at a very reasonable price in the Cainz homeware store.

I think limited storage is probably the main deterrent to buying a large Christmas tree in Japan. Limited storage is one issue that Japanese people face that isn't an issue in my home country where the majority of people live in houses with large attics which are ideal for storing Christmas decorations. In one way, you would think that real Christmas trees would be the solution to that. But I suppose they are not very eco friendly. Moreover, for many years they weren't an option.

However, this year many of the Ikea in Kanto are selling real Christmas trees. They definitely didn't have them in Shinmisato in the past, because we asked on several occasions. I don't know when they introduced them, but I suspect it was within the last five years. If you do know, do let us know!