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‘Tis the season of the Japanese New Year’s trinity: osechi, oseibo and nengajo. Like newsy Christmas cards, the nengajo is a recap of family or personal news mailed in postcards during the weeks preceding the end of the year and efficiently delivered all over Japan promptly on January 1. The winter gift-giving season is in full swing, with companies and individuals sending oseibo gifts as thank-you expressions for kindnesses over the year. Most gifts are food or household items like cooking oil or soap. The best of the traditions is osechi ryori, traditional New Year’s cuisine. Osechi is not something one can find in a restaurant because it’s eaten only one time a year, at home or when visiting others at home.

This was a year of culinary highs for sure, ranging from the ridiculous to the seriously sublime. McDonald’s Choco-Pumpkin fries Yes, you’ve read correctly. While out researching some serious Halloween treats I stumbled on a Mickey D’s seasonal specialty for Japan – Choco-Pumpkin fries. Not only did a picture of it on the menu look pretty awful, the thought of neither salt nor ketchup on my spuds seemed so wrong. And yet it turned out to be a truly impressive surprise. The standard fries at McDonald’s – or, as it’s known in Japan, makudonarudo – came with a packet of chocolate syrup and a packet of pumpkin syrup that you swirl over them yourself.