"Dead" before Christmas

A personal update, and a close call with WHAM!

Many years ago, my American husband told me that there is a popular game to be played every December in the West. It’s called “Whamageddon,” and the point is to try to avoid hearing WHAM’s smash hit “Last Christmas” before Christmas Eve. If you hear it, you lose. “It’s like a survival game that anybody can play,” is how he put it.

I burst out laughing because I knew from experience how ubiquitous the song was during the season there. In fact, I suspected it would be impossible to avoid. It’s such a seasonal megahit that it’s played everywhere, on the radio of course, but also as background music in stores and for commercials on TV.

But the inescapability of “Last Christmas” isn’t limited to America. It’s popular in Japan, too. When the song first dropped here in 1984, it immediately sold a million copies. And it has become a holiday standard here, too. When I’m shopping for fruit or vegetables or whatever in December, it isn’t at all uncommon to hear George Michael lamenting to a girl how he gave her his heart, but then “the next day, you gave it away.” Poor George!

“Boosts your Christmas spirit 200%!” says the tagline on the single.

I apologize for the silence this month. I have been doing something I've never done before in my life — recording an audiobook! It’s for my upcoming book Eight Million Ways to Happiness. I had to read 345 pages aloud — that’s almost 104,000 words! I have to say that this was one of the biggest linguistic challenges I’ve ever experienced as a non-native speaker!

I’ll write about this in more detail soon, I promise. But the point here is that I finished the final recording session a few days ago. I’d been tied up for weeks doing the recording, so I was finally free to run a long-postponed errand: going to the eye doctor to renew my prescription for my contact lenses.

I was so tired that I practically melted into the couch in the waiting room. I closed my eyes, recovering from long days sent cooped up in the studio. Japan doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so holiday music is already starting to fill the air, and my doctor’s office was no exception. At first the volume was so low I didn’t notice, but then there was no denying it. It was a song I’d known ever since the Eighties. That song.

“Last Christmas.”

It isn’t even December yet, I laughed to myself, and I’m already “dead!”

Of course, I told my husband about this “sneak attack” as soon as I got home. But he told me that “traditionally,” insofar as there are any hard and fast rules, Whamageddon doesn’t officially begin until December 1st. So I’m safe. For now!

Last year, I published a newsletter about a similar holiday song in Japan. We don’t play a survival game around it, but it is actually even bigger than “Last Christmas” in Japan. It’s called Christmas Eve. It was composed and sung by the king of the City Pop scene, Tatsuro Yamashita, who happens to be married to the scene’s queen, Mariya Takeuchi. You can read it here!

I’ll be back with a report on how my recording went soon. In the meantime, happy holidays, and stay safe during Whamageddon!

I wrote a book about my experiences and adventures exploring Japan’s spirituality. It’s called Eight Million Ways to Happiness, and is due out in December of 2025. You can pre-order it here!