LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Picture Christmas dinner, and staples like ham, turkey, potatoes, and cookies might come to mind for many Americans.
For families in Japan, however, a much different and very “bluegrass” meal comes to mind: a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
No, really.
What started as a pretty ingenious marketing plan by KFC back in the 1970s has created a December 25th tradition for millions of Japanese families each year.
The campaign encouraged families to swap turkey—which isn’t common in Japan—for a KFC dinner. It worked: according to the BBC, about 3.6 million families in Japan eat KFC each Christmas now.
We heard from Mitz Nabekura, a WakeUp11 viewer, who lived in Japan himself and still has family there.
When his dad and stepmom came to visit for Christmas in 2017, they were shocked and disappointed to learn that the “Kentucky” tradition they loved in their home was not in fact celebrated in Kentucky after all.
“They said, ‘really?! I can’t believe it! This is America!” recalled Nabekura. “Of course, when they got off the airplane the first thing they saw was the Colonel Sanders statue at the KFC there [in the Muhammad Ali airport] and they got really excited and said they had to take a picture with him.
“They were very disappointed that on actual Christmas day nothing here was open including KFC," he said. "So we got them the bucket of [KFC] the night before and they were able to eat that.”
Nabekura also pointed out that while KFC on Dec. 25 is a Japanese tradition now, celebrating Christmas itself is not. Only a very small percentage of the Japanese population is Christian, so the holiday itself is not widely celebrated.
Even still, that hasn’t stopped them from embracing this dinner tradition each December.
►Contact reporter Rob Harris at rjharris@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@robharristv) and Facebook.
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