Guides · Thu 29 Oct 2026
Christmas in Japan: the markets, the lights and the fried chicken
Christmas Day is a working day in Japan and the season belongs to couples, shoppers and the illuminations, not to the family table. What Japan actually does with Christmas: German-style markets in Sapporo and Fukuoka, a floating tree in Hakodate harbour, a Messiah on Christmas Eve, and a bucket of fried chicken that has to be reserved like a restaurant.
The short answer: Japan took Christmas in from the shop window rather than the church, and it shows, happily. There is no public holiday: 25 December is a normal working day, offices and schools run as usual, and the festival lives in the five or six weeks before it, in illuminations, markets and Christmas Eve, which is the romantic night of the Japanese year, closer to Valentine's Day than to a family Christmas at home. The food tells the same story: the standard Christmas dinner is fried chicken, ordered weeks ahead, followed by a strawberry Christmas cake. None of it is solemn and all of it is done properly. This guide takes the season piece by piece, with the places that do it best.
The markets
The season's set piece is the German-style Christmas market, and the original is in Sapporo. The Munich Christmas Market in Sapporo runs from 20 November to 25 December in Odori Park, a gift of the sister-city relationship with Munich: it began in 2002 and this is its 25th edition. Stalls sell hot wine, German food and Christmas crafts under the park's illuminations, entry is free, and it shares the park with the Sapporo White Illumination, which starts the same day, so one evening does both. While you are in the city, two viewpoints on our attractions pages overlook the city lights: the Sapporo TV Tower at the park's eastern end, and the Mount Moiwa ropeway above the whole city.
Fukuoka runs its market in the station plaza: the Christmas market inside Hikari no Machi Hakata runs from 7 November to 25 December beneath the plaza illuminations. And in Nagasaki, Huis Ten Bosch builds the full European version inside the park: its European Holy Christmas, with a market and giant trees, runs from 6 November to 25 December inside the park's renewed Starlight Million illumination season.
The floating tree: Hakodate
The single most distinctive Christmas sight in Japan is in Hakodate harbour. For the Hakodate Christmas Fantasy, from 1 to 25 December, a giant Christmas tree, a gift from Hakodate's Canadian sister city, Halifax, floats on the water in front of the red brick warehouses of the bay area. Every evening at 18:00 the tree is lit in a ceremony with fireworks, and a soup bar of local restaurants sets up along the waterfront for the season. It is free, it is a ten minute walk from JR Hakodate Station, and the bay area is the place to stay: the hotels page covers Hakodate. Go on a weekday if you can; the lighting ceremony draws the whole town on weekends.
The lights
Christmas is the illuminations' high season, and the deadline built into it surprises people: a good share of the city displays are Christmas programmes and switch off for good on 25 December. Two of them anchor a Tokyo Christmas. At Roppongi Hills, the Keyakizaka slope carries about 970,000 white and blue LEDs with Tokyo Tower at the end of the view, to 25 December. At the other end of the city, Tokyo Skytree Town's Dream Christmas spreads about 400,000 lights in a scheme called Star Light Gold over the town at the tower's foot from 5 November to 25 December, and the tower itself cycles through three Christmas lightings, an ornament tree, an elegant tree and a Santa Claus, changing about every fifteen minutes. Our winter illuminations guide covers the season city by city, including the displays that run past Christmas into January and February.
Christmas Eve: the concert night
If Christmas Eve has a soundtrack in Japan it is classical. Bach Collegium Japan has performed the complete Messiah at Suntory Hall in Tokyo every year since 2001, and the 26th performance, under Masato Suzuki, falls on 24 December 2026: our Messiah listing carries the details. December's other fixture is Beethoven's Ninth, the Daiku, performed everywhere in Japan at year's end as a kind of secular ritual; the New Japan Philharmonic plays it at Sumida Triphony Hall on 17 and 20 December, both billed as Christmas concerts. Book either the way you would book Christmas Eve dinner: early, because the whole city has the same idea on the same two or three nights.
The fried chicken, and the cake
And so to dinner. In the 1970s a marketing campaign taught Japan that Christmas means fried chicken, and the lesson stuck so completely that KFC's Christmas buckets are reserved weeks in advance and collected from queues out of the door on 23 and 24 December. Every convenience store and department store basement now runs its own version: roast and fried chicken booked ahead and picked up on the day. Dessert is fixed too: the Japanese Christmas cake is a strawberry shortcake, white sponge, cream and strawberries, ordered in advance and eaten on Christmas Eve. None of this is a joke at Japan's expense. It is a festival the country designed for itself, commercial, cheerful and entirely voluntary, and joining in, bucket, cake and all, is the correct way for a visitor to spend 24 December. What you cannot do is improvise it: reserve the chicken and the cake when you reserve everything else, in November.
One more date for the diary, with a warning label. The Beppu Christmas Fantasia, in the hot spring city of Beppu in Oita, fires more than 10,000 fireworks in time with Christmas songs across two nights on the weekend nearest Christmas. The city has not yet published the 2026 dates; the weekend in question is 19 and 20 December, and our listing carries those dates as tentative until the organisers confirm them.
After the 25th the season hands over, quickly and completely, to New Year, which is Japan's real family festival: our New Year in Japan guide covers what closes, what stays open and what to book, and the December guide puts Christmas in the month's full run of events.
Sources: Sapporo's official tourism site and the Sapporo White Illumination site (the Munich Christmas Market's dates, Odori Park site, sister-city origin and 25th edition); Hokkaido's official tourism site (the Hakodate Christmas Fantasy dates, venue and free entry), with the festival's Halifax tree, 18:00 lighting ceremony and soup bar; Tokyo Skytree's official Dream Christmas page (the tower's three rotating Christmas lightings) and the Skytree Town event record (the town's lights and dates); the Huis Ten Bosch official English site (European Holy Christmas inside the Starlight Million season); Suntory Hall's official season page (the Messiah on 24 December) and the New Japan Philharmonic's concert pages (the December Ninths); Beppu City's official guide (the Fantasia's pattern and its fireworks; the 2026 dates are unpublished and shown as tentative). Checked 28 October 2026.
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