The tyranny of the calendar

I thought this book I would be able to go a little more free-form and not worry about specific dates. But there are a few dates that are, unfortunately, absolute:

First there is the solstice. In real history, the winter solstice of 2018 fell on December 21. This is a small moment in the book; is is one of the moments between Penny and her landlady that lead eventually to Hanae sharing with her plot-important things about Japanese culture. In this case, the evening of the solstice is traditionally the yuzu bath.

It also puts things on a faster pace as before this, the deadline was nebulous. It is after this that Penny realizes the ultimate deadline is New Year's Eve, and it is racing towards her.

(Well, that's a very small bell-ringing, at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. Which does get mentioned in the text!)

But there is another key date in here, and that one falls entirely too soon after the 21st. By the evening of the 24th Penny needs to be in Tokyo to enjoy a traditional Christmas Eve Dinner:

And there is a way the 25th is significant. Penny is struggling with a lot of things, and part of her melt-down during the climax has to do with her own biological clock.

No, not that way! What I mean is, she's growing up, and she's at a point where she has to decide if she can or should continue to spin her wheels doing nothing much in particular with her life, or whether she should commit to the hazardous (and morally ambiguous) path of the archetypal hero that has opened up for her.

(Of course she's going to become Athena Fox. She's got a whole series of books to do!)

In the Japanese context, there is the phrase "Christmas Cake," and it doesn't just refer to the Japanese version of the fruit cake (this a rather more palatable thing covered with seasonal strawberries):

The term was more common a decade ago, but just as no-one wants the cake after the 25th, nobody wants the would-be bride after her twenty-fifth. Which Penny is fast approaching. Of course the "Fox's Wedding" of the title refers specifically to a weather event and the mythology around it:

But I would very much like to be as close to the 25th as I can, and not moved on to the festivities immediately preceding the New Year, as motivators for when Penny goes a little crazy in the deep snow with killers on her tail. That, and there is yet one more Christmas-related bit I really want to work in: