Japanese Christmas

You may recall last year's Christmas meal was a special box of goodies from good ol' Macku Donalds.  Well this year, we decided to up the ante and do it the way the real Japanese people do it.  That's right- we pre-ordered our KFC Christmas box by November 30th, as requested.  We figured this was our last Christmas here, so when in Rome...

A small box of fries and a big box of chicken- doesn't that just say Christmas to you?

Contrary to our original assumption, these boxes of fried Christmasness are not actually delivered to your door.  After some confusion, a phone call, and a frantic 20 minute walk (by someone who was not me), we finally had our chicken that we had ordered almost a month before.  Everything was packaged nicely, complete with a whole TWO ketchup packets, a packet of "spice," and two whole waxy napkins.  Have a look inside the box:

Fried chicken, chicken tenders, and chicken nuggets

What do you mean it doesn't look finger-lickin' good?  Well, it wasn't.  To be honest, we knew it would probably be gross when we ordered it, but we wanted to fit in!  All the cool kids were doing it.  We KNOW we don't like KFC back home, but we hoped maybe in Japan it would be better.  Alas, it wasn't.  But it was fun, nonetheless.  My students all got a big kick out of the fact that we decided to order their beloved Kentukki.  And yes, many of them think this is a Japanese company.
On a prettier note, we also picked up a Christmas Cake.  What is Christmas Cake?  It's sponge cake with layers of strawberries and whipped cream.  Its topping is always strawberries and small Christmas decorations.  I don't know exactly how this tradition started, but everyone here does it.  Here is what 2100 yen will get you at one of Japan's most expensive department stores:

Our 10cm Christmas Cake-y

Strangely, the cake came with candles!  I guess we ARE celebrating a birthday, after all.  Despite the cuteness factor, this cake was also a disappointment.  Unfortunately, a lot of baked goods in this country turn out that way.  They look great, but taste overly sweet or artificial.  But hey, it really was fun.  We made up for it at dinner when we met some friends for all you can eat grilled meats.  Not quite traditional Christmas food, but there's plenty of time for that.

I'm looking forward to next Christmas: morning egg and sausage casserole, afternoon appetizers of cheese ball, and dinner(s) of creamy soup, obligatory salad, stuffing, potatoes, turkey, prime rib, oooooohh man!