Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a good holiday and is enjoying the festivities in their own way. I came across a Facebook post earlier this week asking how Christmas in Japan is like, so I want to discuss a bit about it.
Earlier this week, I posted some photos of Christmas decorations in the heart of Osaka around the station area. While it seems festive enough, how do people here in Japan really celebrate Christmas?
Short answer is, people really don't.
As a coworker of mine put it recent, "Japanese people celebrate Christmas all through the month of December with all the Christmas songs in stores, decorations, illuminations and displays but once that clock hits December 25th - Christmas is over!"
Since my coworker put it that way... it's kinda true.
No Fireworks or Countdowns
Though this is certainly more of a New Years tradition, I do remember having Christmas countdowns on TV in Canada (and even in Hong Kong - Christmas is quite a huge deal there).
Lots of my friends when we started going to college, would often buy fireworks in Wal-Mart for both Christmas and New Years do celebrate in the park. Depends on everyone's availability of course - since most of my own friends celebrated New Years with immediate family, Christmas was more of the "huge group gathering". We also had a few people who had birthdays around Christmas, so the festivities were more common around Christmas.
Either way, fireworks is strictly a summer activity here in Japan. Whether you do fireworks during Christmas or during New Year, you would be very hard pressed to find any to buy at a local store. So it's best to give up on that idea now.
Fried Chicken and Cake
I'm sure if you know a thing or two about Japan and Christmas, I'm sure you've heard of the tradition of buying KFC for dinner. It is quite a thing here to eat fried chicken during Christmas, for whatever reason.
Usually starting around mid-November, KFC would start accepting preorders for KFC set dinners.
These usually come with some number of pieces of fried chickens, and depending on the set, it will come with a special KFC Christmas plate and a cake.
Yes, you heard that right, cakes.
Along with fried chicken, cakes are pretty synonymous to Japanese Christmas. These days, more and more businesses are riding the Christmas gravy train selling chicken during this time. Places like your local convenience stores and even restaurants. Convenience stores will often also offer preorders on a number of cakes.
I would 100% stay away from these "Christmas Cakes" if I were you. Not only are they usually very small in size, prices are often around the 3000-4000 yen range for just a plain strawberry cake or chocolate cake. If you are still interested in getting a cake, it's best to get one that's not labelled "Christmas" - though you should still expect there to be a price difference from the normal cost.
These days, food stalls in the B1 levels of Department Stores also seem to be offering a huge range of chickens and fried chickens. And of course cake, if you're brave enough to enter the battlefield of desserts between December 24 and 25th...
Work as Usual?
Believe it or not, Christmas Day for Japan is almost always a work day. Previously the 23th was a holiday as the previous Emperor had his birthday then, but now the Christmas holidays are just business as usual for most people.
This means people generally only celebrate at night, if they can - assuming they don't rack up overtime at work.
Illuminations and Dates (Not a Family Gathering)
This is why night time Illuminations are particularly popular in Japan (and in a lot of Asian countries), since this is the only time they can possible have some free time.
Most young couples will take advantage of this time to go on dates. Most families will spend time during the New Years when they return back to their hometown (which is also when there are actual national holidays for everyone).
Is Christmas here different than your own home country?
How do you guys celebrate Christmas?