In Japan, Christmas is synonymous with KFC. Every year during the festive season, statues of Colonel Sanders are dressed up as Father Christmas, making him Colonel Santa, and Christmas-themed advertisements with the jingle ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ playing in the background are shown on television. The Japanese order their bucket well in advance because there are long queues in front of the shops on Christmas Eve. The traditional Japanese Christmas meal is a ‘festive bucket’ from KFC that includes fried chicken, salad and cake, an angel food cake with cream and fruit usually decorated in a Christmas theme.
But how did fried chicken become the symbol of Christmas?
After the Second World War, the Japanese economy started to grow and a great interest in Western culture began to develop, which also led to the rapid expansion of the fast-food industry in the country. In addition, Christmas in Japan is regarded as a secular holiday and in the post-war period there were no established family Christmas traditions.
Thanks to these two factors and an advertising campaign in 1974 designed to boost KFC sales during the holidays, ordering KFC became a national tradition.
It was not only the advertising campaigns that triggered this success. The dishes offered by KFC are similar to kaarage, a traditional Japanese dish of chicken or fish bites breaded with panko and fried. Moreover, sharing food is an important element of Japanese culture.
