Christmas in Japan

How Japan celebrates Christmas

Christmas, Kurisumasu, is one of the most visible seasons in Japan, even though very few Japanese are Christian. From early November, department stores, stations and shopping streets put up trees and lights, Christmas songs play in shops, and bakeries take orders for Christmas cakes. The celebration centres on Christmas Eve, Kurisumasu Ibu, rather than Christmas Day.

Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan. On 25 December offices, banks and most businesses work as usual. From 1989 to 2018, 23 December was a national holiday as the birthday of Emperor Akihito, which gave the season a long weekend in some years, but since Emperor Naruhito's accession in May 2019 the Emperor's Birthday has been 23 February. Families with young members often celebrate with a cake, a chicken dinner and presents left by Santa Kurōsu, usually called Santa-san, and as soon as Christmas is over, shops and homes switch to New Year decorations such as kadomatsu pine arrangements.

A short history of Christmas in Japan

The earliest surviving written record of Christmas in Japan comes from Yamaguchi in 1552. Jesuit missionaries led by Cosme de Torres, who had taken over the mission from Francis Xavier, celebrated Christmas in a former Buddhist temple, Daidō-ji, given to the Jesuits by the local lord Ōuchi Yoshitaka. A letter by the missionary Pedro de Alcáçova describes Masses, sermons and readings through the night and a meal shared with the poor. When Christianity was banned in the early 17th century, believers who kept their faith in secret, the kakure kirishitan ("hidden Christians"), had to hide any Christian observance.

Christmas returned after the Meiji Restoration, when freedom of religion was introduced and Japan opened to Western customs. Parties and gift exchanges, influenced by American practice, spread among non-Christians in the early 20th century, after the Russo-Japanese War, and after the Second World War, as cakes and decorations became affordable, Christmas grew into a nationwide season. Today Christians make up roughly 1 per cent of the population or less, and churches hold Christmas Eve services for their congregations and for visitors.

Christmas Eve: a night for couples

For young adults in Japan, Christmas Eve is the most romantic night of the year, closer to Valentine's Day elsewhere than to a family festival. Couples reserve a table at a luxury restaurant, often French, walk through the illuminations and exchange gifts, and many book a hotel room in advance. For those without a partner, singles' events and konkatsu (marriage-hunting) parties are organised for the evening, and their places fill quickly. The Christmas date is often described as the second most popular occasion of the year, after New Year.

Kentucky for Christmas

Japan's most famous Christmas custom is eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. It goes back to Takeshi Okawara, manager of Japan's first KFC, which opened in Nagoya in November 1970. The company says he came up with a Christmas party barrel after hearing a foreign customer say they missed turkey at Christmas, though the story has never been independently confirmed. In 1974 the Christmas party barrel went on sale nationwide, and advertising that linked fried chicken with Christmas turned it into a national habit.

Today Christmas buckets are pre-ordered from early November, and queues form outside branches on 24 and 25 December to collect them. A typical Christmas box contains chicken, a side dish and a small cake, and Christmas reportedly brings in about a third of KFC Japan's annual sales.

Kurisumasu kēki: Japanese Christmas cake

The Japanese Christmas cake is a light sponge layered with whipped cream and topped with bright red strawberries, in the red and white of the Japanese flag. The first Christmas cake in Japan is usually credited to Fujiya, a confectioner founded by Fujii Rinemon in the Motomachi district of Yokohama, which sold a fruit cake with a white glaze in 1910. In 1922 Fujii created a strawberry shortcake inspired by his time in the United States, and from the 1950s, as Japan recovered from the war, the strawberry Christmas cake became affordable and universal.

Bakeries, department stores and convenience stores all sell Christmas cakes, many of them ordered in advance, and they are collected and eaten on 24 or 25 December.

Winter illuminations

Japan's winter illuminations (iruminēshon) turn streets, parks and theme parks into displays of light; the largest use more than a million LEDs. Many open in November and run through Christmas, and some stay up until February or later. Displays near major stations are popular meeting places on Christmas Eve, and illumination walks are a classic date.

Exact dates for 2026–27 are announced by each organiser in the autumn. December also has its own soundtrack: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, known as Daiku ("the Ninth"), is performed as many as 150 times across Japan at the end of the year, sometimes with choirs of thousands. The symphony was first performed in Japan in 1918 by German prisoners of war at the Bandō camp in Naruto, Tokushima.

Christmas and New Year food in Japan

Shōgatsu: the New Year

If Christmas is for couples and friends, the New Year, Shōgatsu, is for family. Japan has celebrated New Year on 1 January since it adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873. Government offices close from 29 December to 3 January, many companies take a similar break, and many people travel back to their home towns. Doors are decorated with kadomatsu of pine and bamboo, and a kagami mochi of two round rice cakes is displayed in the home.

On New Year's Eve, ōmisoka, families eat toshikoshi soba, "year-crossing noodles", and watch NHK's long-running song contest Kōhaku Uta Gassen. Around midnight, Buddhist temples ring their great bells 108 times in the ritual of joya no kane, one strike for each of the worldly desires of Buddhist teaching. On New Year's Day, Ganjitsu, a national holiday, families eat osechi ryōri, the young receive otoshidama, money gifts in small decorated envelopes, and people make hatsumōde, the first visit of the year to a shrine or temple, to pray for good fortune.

Nengajō: New Year cards

Japan's equivalent of the Christmas card is the nengajō, the New Year postcard. Japan Post usually starts accepting them on 15 December, and cards posted by about 25 December are delivered on 1 January. Many people now send greetings online as well, and free New Year 2027 e-cards, quote cards and ready-to-send wishes are a quick way to reach friends abroad who will not receive a postcard. The traditional greeting is Akemashite omedetō gozaimasu, "Happy New Year".

Japanese Christmas and New Year dates 2026

Christmas in Japan: frequently asked questions

Christmas in nearby countries