holidays – The Countryman's Daughter

Big in Japan

The Japanese KFC Christmas Bucket. Photo KFC Japan

In Japan, people queue for hours to collect their KFC Christmas Bucket of crispy chicken. Photo: KFC Japan

So Christmas is finally here and the TV and radio are crammed with festive programmes, particularly around the food and drink that we will be consuming for Christmas Dinner (I say ‘finally’. It actually approached at breakneck speed and gets speedier with each passing year). I’m a traditionalist and our table will be groaning under the weight of an oversized turkey, piles of roast potatoes, mashed potato, mashed swede, sprouts (just for my mum), various other vegetables, pigs in blankets, oodles of stuffing, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, proper gravy and, of course, Yorkshire puddings.

For those of you who think that Yorkshire puds do not have a place on the festive dinner table, you are wrong. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by providing reasons why, but just know that you are, and always will be, wrong.

Something that definitely does NOT have a place on our table is cauliflower cheese. Anything that is accompanied by a cheese sauce has NO place on the same table as a gravy boat. Cheese sauce next to gravy? Ugh. It’s simply filthy.

Now that is cleared up, I hope your own Christmas lunch was everything you wanted it to be. I have been hearing about some very interesting food traditions in other countries, particularly in Japan where it is common to have Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day. Yes you read that right. KFC. On Christmas Day.

Sometimes, when I am up to my elbows in a raw turkey, and have not yet peeled the potatoes, carrots, or chopped the veg, and still have seven beds to make up, and the bathrooms to clean, while at the same time realising I have bought two presents for one person, none for another and will have to do some surreptitious present reshuffling, the attraction of nipping out to the nearest fast food place and buying a giant bucket of crispy chicken sounds quite attractive.

But I could go out and buy a giant bucket of crispy chicken any day of the year if I want to. There’s nothing remotely special about it, is there?

To millions of Japanese people, there is. The craze (if it’s fair to call it a craze) began way back in the 1970s. Takeshi Okawara had just opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in the in the city of Nagoya, Japan, and according to what could be a myth, he overheard some foreign customers discussing how they missed eating turkey at Christmas and were ordering a bucket of chicken instead. Harvard-educated Okawara, who by 1984 had risen to become the CEO of KFC Japan, spotted a golden marketing opportunity. He started to promote ‘Party Barrels’ to mark Christmas, and the advertising encouraged people to gather and with friends and family to celebrate. The idea took off, and by 1974, Okawara’s idea was adopted nationally with the slogan ‘Kentucky for Christmas’. Knowing what a big deal Christmas was in the USA, Santa-lookalike Colonel Sanders was dressed in a red suit and hat to promote the special festive meal deal.

More people began to flock to the shops to get their seasonal bucket, using it as an opportunity to have a party with loved ones. With only one percent of the population Christian, Christmas it is not a holiday in Japan and purely a secular celebration, similar to the UK marking St Valentine’s Day. Most working families do not have the time to prepare a huge dinner and thus the KFC Christmas Barrel has become the quick and easy meal of choice.

Today, it is by far KFC’s busiest time, with Christmas accounting for a third of the chain’s annual turnover in Japan, and nearly four million people consuming Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe crispy chicken. Customers start ordering their party meals in November, and queue around the block to pick them up, just as we do our turkeys from the local butcher.

KFC Japan’s festive bucket includes pieces of crispy chicken, a ‘meat gratin’ (whatever that is) and a strawberry mousse cake. Here in the UK, we can also buy a similar festive bucket, alongside various other seasonal items, such as the Stuffing Stacker burger.

Next year, if everything gets a bit much, I might be tempted to give it a go. Would you?

However you celebrate, have very Happy Christmas!

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 26th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 24th Dec 2025

Does anyone love a festive birthday?

Photographer Bella Bradford and her daughter Heidi, who both have New Year birthdays

My column about festive birthdays sparked some interesting feedback, with most declaring that they don’t like it and would prefer to have a birthday at a different time of year away from Christmas.

Claire Dunston-Elliot was born on 20^th December and says: “I hate joint Christmas/birthday cards or presents. Sometimes people forget my birthday because of Christmas, or I get birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper.” She also points out that it’s often tricky to find places to eat that do a normal menu not just Christmas food. “I would love a summer birthday,” she says.

Sarah Robinson’s birthday is on 20^th December too and she tries to be as organised as possible, making sure that all the Christmas presents are bought and wrapped before the 20^th and that ‘Christmas stops for just a day’ so she can enjoy her birthday to the full. She adds: “I did a joint 50th in the summer with my husband and it was much better! I find I am mellowing with this the older I become, and I’m just glad family and friends are around to call by.”

That’s a valid sentiment which is shared by Rob Fawcett, whose birthday falls on 16^th December: “I guess it would be nice to have it in July, but I’m getting to that age when I don’t give a monkey’s when it is…just as long as they keep coming!”

Jenny Jagger, who celebrates on 29^th December, declares: “It’s rubbish. I made sure I had my babies in the spring!” She also tried celebrating in the summer, but people tended to forget her birthday altogether.

Katie Westmorland says: “I’m a December birthday and I don’t like it. Christmas cards come before birthday cards in the post!”

Clare Proctor adds: “We happily have all our birthdays in the summer, so we can have shared celebrations, but when the girls (both August) were small we made sure to celebrate their individual birthdays so they both got equal attention. I remember a friend’s daughter’s birthday being 2^nd January and it often got forgotten because everyone was exhausted from the festive season!”

Michael Kilmartin’s daughter Rose was born on Boxing Day 2014: “For me this is a pain because Christmas has to be finished or put on the back burner. When at home, I used to look forward to a second roast dinner or a visit to a working men’s club for a pint and a bag of crisps. Rose now chooses what she would like to eat and would agree that some of her celebration gets mixed up with Christmas. Presents seem to be smaller too. My wife believes Rose should have a half birthday but this creates issues with her brother and her friends who don’t know what to buy her etc. I will never, however, forget dinner on Boxing Day 2014.” I bet he won’t!

Elise Dawson says: “Our Jack’s is on 16^th December. We always put decorations up on the first weekend of December and he doesn’t seem bothered. I’m sure he will as he gets older though.”

I think Elise has a point in thinking that young children don’t mind having a festive birthday, but as they get older they begin to notice things they might be missing out on.

Photographer Bella Bradford has a double whammy, with herself and her five-year-old daughter Heidi both having New Year birthdays. “Having a birthday on the 30th December has always been a weird one. I’ve never truly been able to celebrate with a big group of people on the day itself because people want a quieter day before the New Year’s party after a busy festive period. Luckily Heidi’s birthday is on New Year’s Eve and there is always a party so she will always be around people to celebrate.”

John Walker seems to be the lone adult voice who doesn’t mind having a festive birthday. His falls on New Year’s Eve and he says: “I used to get invited round to the next-door neighbours’ to celebrate. It’s a great time to have a birthday, just about everyone worldwide celebrates it!”

And the obliging neighbour who would always throw a party on New Year’s Eve? Well, that was me!

Are there any of you out there who enjoy having a festive birthday? If so, do get in touch!

Contact me via my webpage at countrymansdaughter.com.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 16th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 14th Feb 2024.

The giving spirit of Christmas

Even if Christmas has become too commercial I still want to get a luxurious present!

I can’t quite believe that this is my last column before Christmas, and as I write, I am wondering what to wear for my annual works night out tonight. We usually end up having a great time, thanks to the free-flowing wine and cocktails, and end the night embarrassing ourselves with some energetic mum/dad dancing in a local bar. It was American stand-up comedian and actress Phyllis Diller who said: “What I hate about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.” I’m hoping I will still have mine in the morning!

I’m sure these sentiments are familiar to many of you, and I’d be interested to hear your cringe-worthy party stories. If you do have any, don’t keep them to yourself but share them with us by getting in touch via the contact details at the bottom of this column (of course, anonymity is guaranteed!).

Good old Les Dawson bemoaned the fact that his family didn’t have much money with which to celebrate: “We were so poor that we couldn’t afford a turkey. We gave the budgie chest expanders. It was five a side to a cracker.”

This time of year can be stressful, especially with having to buy presents for a lot of people, all with different personalities and tastes. There is a stereotype that suggests men are not very good at buying gifts for their other halves. Now I know it is a sweeping generalisation, but stereotypes are stereotypes because they are, on the whole, true. One year, my mum was less than enamoured by the fact that my dad had bought her some pans, and my ex-husband would buy me practical things for the house, like towels, or crockery. It’s not exactly romantic and is an indication of how they see us – as their domestic home helps rather than the love of their lives.

If, until you began to read this, you were considering buying your dearest love pans or crockery, I suggest you take this advice from English comedian Jeff Green: “Women do not consider the following to be gifts: diet books, cooking utensils, cleaning products, petrol for the car, anything from the Pound Shop”. I would add to that that if you want to make sure that you and your partner are still talking to each other once the presents have been unwrapped, then you can’t go far wrong with jewellery (made from precious metals and stones and not from the supermarket), expensive perfume or after shave (not the sort you get from the garage shop), or fancy toiletries (again, not from the supermarket). If you’re struggling, go to your local Boots or department store, follow the waft of perfume to the luxury scent counter and ask the assistant for advice. Believe you me, most of us would prefer one thing of high quality than a whole drawerful of cheap tat. And by high quality, I don’t mean a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Your gift has to leave the recipient with the feeling that they are being spoiled and, more importantly, that you have thought about what they might actually like to receive rather than what you think will make the job of cleaning the house easier.

I’m not the sort of person who will let on how disappointed I am when I get a rubbish present but I think I was justified on what I now call My Worst Christmas Ever. A receipt for a pair of expensive earrings had been carelessly left on the desk in our study weeks before Christmas, and I’d pretended I hadn’t seen it, awaiting the big day with eager anticipation. For once, I thought, I was not getting something useful, but something luxurious and just for me.

Unfortunately, the earrings ended up under another woman’s tree.

Of course, there are those who complain that the true meaning of Christmas has been lost, a victim to commercialism, overindulgence and greed. And I do think it does us good to remember how it all began, and who we should be thinking about at this time of year. With that in mind, I’m going to wish you happiness and joy over the coming festive period, and will give my last words to someone with a great deal more wisdom than me, Bart Simpson:

“Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Santa?”

Contact me via my webpage at countrymansdaughter.com, or email gazette@gazetteherald.co.uk.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 22nd and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 20th December 2023.