When you think about a Christmas dinner with your family, what’s your first thought?
Perhaps it’s a cooked ham, dripping with juices and served over a helping of green beans and fresh corn. Maybe it’s a roast beef, drizzled in brown gravy with a side of roasted potatoes. Or perhaps your family likes to have a repeat of Thanksgiving on Christmas Day with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.
All of those meals are fairly different from one another in terms of preparation, presentation, and taste, but each has their own way of embodying a traditional American Christmas dinner enjoyed by family and friends.
That being said, I’m sure that when you think about your family’s Christmas dinner traditions, your last thought is a hefty helping of fried fast food, smack dab in the middle of the finely decorated table, right?
Well, thanks to a successful 1974 ad campaign by KFC entitled, “Kentucky for Christmas,” a big bucket of fried chicken on Christmas Day is considered the norm throughout Japan, and serves as being a staple aspect to their holiday traditions.
The man Japan can thank for their helping of fried chicken on Christmas Day would be Mr. Takeshi Okawara, the branch manager of the very first KFC to exist in Japan. Okawara presented the idea of “Kentucky for Christmas” to KFC corporate after a foreigner came into his store and spoke of how difficult it was to obtain a turkey for his Christmas dinner, as turkeys are hard to come across in Japan, and are generally very expensive when sold.
With that in mind, Okawara drew the comparisons between turkey and chicken, which led to his conclusion that if turkey for Christmas isn’t a viable option in Japan, then why not chicken? And thus, “Kentucky for Christmas” was born, and has been a viral sensation in Japan ever since. Even the Colonel himself gets decked out for the holidays!
To boot, the menu options aren’t limited to just the typical chicken breast, wings, and thighs that we’ve come to know and love in the states. The KFC Christmas menu has a wide variety of “finger-lickin' good” chicken and sides for their Japanese customers—including premium rotisserie chicken, salads, Christmas cake, marinated chicken breasts, and much more. Not really something we’re used to seeing over here, that’s for sure.
But, hang on a second, don’t assume that all of this means you can just walk into any old KFC in Japan on Christmas and place an order for your favorite bucket of wings and thighs—because chances are they’ve already sold out!
In fact, KFC for Christmas has become so popular that many Japanese families will order their chicken over a month prior to the holiday to ensure that they can actually get their share.
And even if you do order your chicken a month early, when you go to pick it up on Christmas Day, you’re still going to need to wait in a line that can last up to two hours! After all, with an estimated 127 million people to feed in Japan and only about 1,165 KFC outlets, you can expect some serious lines.
Should America follow Japan’s lead and deck the halls with fried chicken during the holiday season? Or are we better off just sticking to the roast beef and turkey?
