年賀状 - Wishes cards
12/28/2007
In Japan, one traditionally sends wishes cards for the New Year. I know it's not specific to Japan, but it's a well followed custom here with a strong meaning to it. For instance, it is very important to send the cards before December 31st and the sooner the better. This year I don't have much time (moving in my new apartment takes forever) to write tons of cards so I've decided to make it simple and send only one to my boss.
I usually prefer to write personalized messages but predefined ones work pretty well too and I decided to go that way this year. Here is my message, one of the most standard ones that can be:
"昨年は色々お世話になりました。本年もよろしくお願いいたします", which can approximately be translated to "thank you for everything you've done for me last year, please honor me with your kindness this year too".
Have you noticed the inconsistency? In my message, I use the expressions "last year" and "this year", which only make sense if my card arrives after December 31st. Or in the first paragraph, I clearly stated that the cards should be sent as early as possible before December 31st (usually from the 25-26th), which implies that they most likely arrive before the New Year...
...Well no! Wishes cards undergo a special process. They indeed get the expected timestamp, that is from the day they were actually posted, but they are then stored and dispatched only on January 1st.
Category: Customs
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