🎄 メリクリ from Itou! 🎄
Happy Holidays!
Something lovely about Japanese language is its tendency to abbreviate almost everything. And the winter holiday is no exception. They take the typical English greeting “Merry Christmas” and transform it to katakana like so:
(me-rii-ku-ri-su-ma-su)
Then they go another step ahead and abbreviate it using the first 2 syllables of each word. So we keep the “Me-ri” from Merry and the “Ku-ri” from Christmas, making it a short and sweet greeting, メリクリ!
Used both verbally and in online greetings, you’ll see this 4-character greeting everywhere in December. Try it out on your next trip to Ito!