3.5 Million Families in Japan Order KFC for Christmas Every Year — Here's Why

Mar. 15, 2025

A Kentucky Fried Chicken store in Japan.Photo:YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty

YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty

For many people in Japan, KFC is central to their Christmas celebrations.

Per theBritish news outlet, customers line up around the block to get their hands on the festive fast food and some even preorder their meals as early as October. The fried chicken is meant as a nod to the roast turkey dinner many cultures partake in for holiday dinners.

Christmas isn’t universally celebrated in Japan — only about 1% of the population identifies as Christian, though many celebrate it as a secular festive season. Some of the minority group who celebrate treat Christmas like Valentine’s Day and lean into the romance, according toBBCjournalist Tyler Edwards, while others go a crispier route.

The KFC tradition dates back to 1970, when the first KFC opened in Japan, a KFC Japan spokesperson toldBBCin 2016. The manager of that first restaurant, Takeshi Okawara, supposedly heard a few foreigners lament not having turkey on Christmas, which prompted his idea of a Christmas “party barrel.” Thus, in 1974, he started Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii,or “Kentucky for Christmas,": the tradition of eating KFC on Dec. 24.

A KFC Christmas meal.Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty

Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty

The Christmas tradition grew, from simple buckets of fried chicken to today’s Kentucky Christmas dinner packages with chicken, shrimp gratin, cake and more. The holiday cheer extended beyond the food, too, when the KFC’s Colonel Sanders (who shares his white hair and beard look with Santa) began donning red and white suits around Christmas time.

There’s some excitingKFCnews in the U.S., too.

A brand-newchicken tender-focused restaurant called Saucyopened in Orlando on Monday, Dec. 23.

Unlike typical KFC restaurants, which sell everything from fried chicken pieces to nuggets to chicken sandwiches, the new venture focuses on crispy chicken tenders. The tenders come with the choice of 11 signature sauces — in a nod to the flagship’s famous 11 herbs and spices in its chicken coating.

source: people.com