Is celebrating 26th Birthday bad?

Ikuyo Kuruyo,

Sorry to be off topic, but I'm just curious. What do you mean by "door stopper"? Anyway I agree with you about the kurisumasu keeki and I thought it was a humorous post. At least they don't exist in the U.S., U.K. or Germany as far as I know.

Sorry to be off topic, but I'm just curious. What do you mean by "door stopper"?

Ikuyo is referring to fruitcake, which is (at least in the US) thought to be generally disliked and is an often ridiculed dessert, stereotypically thought of as having the taste and composition of cardboard. I guess Ikuyo uses them as a doorstopper.

Really? I have always thought the average is around 25. Both my younger brother (24) and younger sister (23) are already married, so my parents are starting to push me to get married. It's really hard to be myself with a lot of pressure.

Lets add some statistics to the discussion to try and dispell some of these myths. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication says that the average age of first marriage of Japanese women in 2008 was 28.5 years old.

http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/c02cont.htm#cha2_4

... I was talking about the white cake with strawberries that is considered "Christmas cake" in Japan, not the dark, heavy, unfrosted, and generally disliked and regifted fruitcake in the west. Many of them are so hard and heavy, you can use it as a doorstop, which many would prefer to do rather than eat the thing. The Japanese cakes are much more like a birthday cake.

Uco,

As yllwmrf and Samurai007 explained already, I meant the fruitcake that's so heavy that you can use it was a door stopper. I also heard that there is only one fruitcake in the world and people have been passing it around.:)

Thanks guys. Ikuyo Kuruyo, I had thought so but I had a good laugh having been explained about that tsukkomi right in the face. I guess Americans don't have to rush to marriage since their cake can be well sold for decades (just joking).

Personally for me, there is no Christmas without the fruitcake and mine definitely hasn't been passed around, 'cause we finish it all in no time!

samurai007, generalising about "the west" is not always a good idea. In NZ at least, heavy fruit cakes are popular, and liked, except perhaps by some small children, and the situation seems to be the same in the UK and Australia when I have been there at Christmas time. Can you really say that you know that people in all western countries generally don't like fruitcake? Better to stick to talking about the countries, and people, you know well.

Come on, Sira........

Now in Japan

I'm starting to look for a birthday cake, but I find myself more drawn into Christmas cakes instead. They are very tantalizing! Would it be strange if I served a Christmas cake on New Years Day? Or would I come off as cheap? (as Christmas cakes go on sale after Christmas)

ahhh... fruitcake - the worst part about the christmas season!!!

my grandma makes a DISGUSTING fruitcake every year (seriously - i don't even know how she makes it taste that bad) and sends it to everyone - but it just ends up sitting in my mom's freezer all year until it is replaced the next christmas by the new one. i think my mom feels too bad to throw it away and she usually tries to choke down slice. one year my brothers decided to feed it to our dog but she took one sniff and ran away! LOL! (you gotta love brothers...)

anyway, i had a good laugh remembering that and just wanted to add that i don't really known any americans that have a "christmas cake" per se - some may eat fruitcake or i've known others that make a buche de noel, but i would say generally speaking, it's not really a common tradition.
i think most americans just kind of do their own thing and don't really care (my aunt loves thanksgiving dinner so much that she makes it again on christmas day and we eat it after open our presents...)

lydia - i think that no matter where you are, no matter what your age, no matter what your marital status - you should totally celebrate your birthday! it's the one day a year you get to be a princess :)

I'm from NZ too and fruitcake is really popular (and liked) here. I neither like or dislike fruitcake - I don't really enjoy sweet foods. But in reply to the OP's question I hope you had a happy 26th birthday, I also celebrated my 27th after Christmas. There is no reason not to celebrate your 26th, you're still very young!