And KFC's founder and mascot, Colonel Sanders, has become the symbol of Christmas in Japan.

Seriously, if you search Christmas Japan on Google images, the top result is Colonel Sanders in a Santa suit.

So, what's going on?

Well, although many Japanese people do now celebrate Christmas, not many are Christian, 

and so they don't have all the same traditions as the west like the traditional turkey dinner.

However, one year, the manager of KFC's first ever store in Japan overheard a couple of tourists say that they'd really missed not having turkey at Christmas, and that night he woke up with an idea:

What if KFC's fried chicken could be a substitute for turkey?

So in 1974, KFC launched a new campaign across Japan called "Kentucky for Christmas",

and began offering what they called Christmas party barrels - which were fried chicken meals to be shared by families over the holidays.

The idea really took off, especially in the 90's as KFC massively doubled down on its Christmas advertising to reinforce this association between KFC and Christmas with the Japanese people.

For many years, they ran big ads to create the connection in people's minds.

And it definitely helped that they used the imagery of KFC's mascot, Colonel Sanders, all dressed up in a Santa suit.

Japan is a country that puts a high value on its elders, 

and so having this old man with white hair and the classic Santa suit just worked really well.

So much so that Colonel Sanders has essentially become the symbol of Christmas in Japan.

KFC were pretty sneaky though.

As the ads that KFC ran in Japan often suggested that eating Kentucky Fried Chicken at Christmas was already a popular tradition in America, 

which is perhaps why it caught on in Japan, as they thought it was something that was already popular elsewhere, not just something that KFC had invented to boost chicken sales.

Because in reality, even though KFC is an American company, if you showed up to Christmas dinner with a bucket of KFC in the US, you'd get some very weird looks.

However for Japan, it kind of filled the void of not having a Christmas tradition, and it's actually become a nice way of getting all the family together and sharing a meal.

In fact, the tradition of having KFC at Christmas in Japan has become so popular that you have to place your KFC order weeks in advance, or you'll be waiting in line for hours to get your fried chicken party barrel.

It's estimated these Christmas packages account for up to a third of the chain's yearly sales in Japan!

And so it's perhaps not too surprising that the guy who came up with the idea later became CEO of KFC in Japan - and he did admit that he regretted lying and saying that people in the US had this tradition.

But to be fair, people in Japan seem to like it.

And for KFC, it was genius marketing.

Of course, the twist to all of this is that the real life Colonel Sanders who created the company, actually ending up hating KFC and suing the company before he died.

Seriously, the full KFC story is a rollercoaster, and you can go watch it for yourself right now by clicking the thumbnail on screen. 

I'll see you there in a second. Cheers.