Japan Christmas 2026: KFC, Markets, Lights and What Is Open
Christmas in Japan is a normal working day: Friday 25 December 2026. Dates for 2026 markets and lights, KFC and cake, weather and busy trains.
By Shunta Fujii
Japan Christmas: the short answer
Christmas in Japan is a normal working day: Friday 25 December 2026, with shops, banks and trains running as usual. The Japan Christmas custom is chicken and a Christmas cake on the evening of 24 December, and KFC is the best-known name for the chicken.
The lights go up weeks before Christmas. Osaka’s Midosuji Illumination starts on 3 November 2026, and Sapporo’s White Illumination and Munich Christmas Market both open on 20 November. The long break comes a week later, at New Year.
Here are the short answers to the questions visitors ask most.
- Is Christmas a holiday? No. Japan has 16 national holidays, and none of them falls in December in 2026 or 2027.
- What do people eat? Chicken and a Christmas cake. Online cake orders at Daimaru Matsuzakaya close at 10:00 on 18 December.
- Where are the Christmas markets? Sapporo’s runs from 20 November to 25 December 2026. For Tokyo, the latest official details are from the 2025 season.
- When are the lights on? From 3 November in Osaka and 20 November in Sapporo. Some Sapporo sites stay lit until 14 March 2027.
- How cold is it? Tokyo’s average December high is 12.0°C. Sapporo’s is 2.0°C, with snow on the ground on most December days.
- Are trains busy? Yes. Every Nozomi on the Shinkansen is reserved-seat only from 25 December 2026 to 5 January 2027.
- Can I shop tax-free? Yes, under the refund method that starts on 1 November 2026.
Is Christmas a holiday in Japan?
No. Japan’s Act on National Holidays names 16 national holidays a year, and each one is a day off. The Cabinet Office list of national holidays for 2026 and 2027 has none in December. The last holiday of 2026 is Labor Thanksgiving Day on Monday 23 November. The next one is New Year’s Day on Friday 1 January 2027.
The Cabinet Office page below, in Japanese, states that the law sets 16 national holidays a year and links to the 2026 and 2027 lists.
The Emperor’s Birthday is a national holiday too, but it falls on 23 February. With a substitute holiday on 6 May and a Citizens’ Holiday on 22 September, Japan has 18 days off in 2026. Our 2026 holiday calendar lists each one with its weekday. Our December holiday page shows zero days off in both 2026 and 2027.
Thursday 24 December and Friday 25 December are normal working days for banks, offices and shops. Banks then close on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 December, since they close every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday. The illustration below sums up the days around Christmas.
The real break comes at New Year. Banks close from 31 December to 3 January, and many sights close for several days. Some offices stop earlier. The City of Osaka’s offices open 9:00 to 17:30 on weekdays and close from 29 December to 3 January. GO TOKYO calls 31 December the most important day of the month, when many Japanese visit a shrine or temple to welcome the new year. Our New Year 2026–27 guide covers the closures and the busiest travel days.
Japan Christmas food: KFC and Christmas cake
The department store Daimaru Matsuzakaya describes chicken and a Christmas cake on the evening of 24 December as the standard in Japan. No rule fixes the day, and many people also eat their cake on 23 or 25 December.
For the chicken, KFC is the name most visitors know, and its shops get busy on Christmas Eve. The cake takes more planning, because department stores sell theirs by advance order.
The classic Japanese Christmas cake is a strawberry shortcake with fresh cream, a pairing Daimaru Matsuzakaya calls the standard. Chocolate cakes, fruit tarts and chestnut Mont Blanc cakes fill out the range. The store’s guide calls the Christmas cake a Japanese custom and compares it with German stollen, French bûche de Noël and Italian panettone. The photo below shows a typical strawberry Christmas cake.
At the Daimaru Matsuzakaya online store, orders for 2026 opened at 10:00 on Thursday 1 October and close at 10:00 on Friday 18 December. If you pay at a convenience store, an ATM, by net banking or with an ID payment service, the deadline is Saturday 12 December. Some cakes have their own order periods.
You then choose the day to collect the cake: Wednesday 23, Thursday 24 or Friday 25 December. Some cakes come with a fixed day and time, so read the product page first. Once placed, an order cannot be changed, cancelled or returned.
Prices sit in bands from under 3,000 yen to 7,000 yen and up, tax included. The store’s guide puts the usual price at about 3,000 to 5,000 yen. These cakes for pickup at the Daimaru Tokyo store show the spread:
- Morozoff Christmas strawberry shortcake: 3,564 yen.
- Henri Charpentier Fraise de Noël, 12 cm: 4,644 yen.
- Wittamer Fraise de Wittamer: 5,400 yen.
- Antenor Santa’s house of sweets: 8,424 yen.
Japanese cakes come in size numbers, called gō. A size 3 or 4 cake, under about 15 cm, serves 1 to 4 people. A size 5, about 15 to 18 cm, serves 4 to 6, and size 6 and up serves 6 to 8.
The illustration below shows the four steps of a store pickup order.
For most travellers, store pickup is simpler than delivery. In Tokyo, the stores are Daimaru Tokyo and Matsuzakaya Ueno. In the Kansai region, they are Daimaru Umeda, Kyoto and Kobe. Daimaru Sapporo and Daimaru Fukuoka Tenjin are on the list too. On the day, bring your order slip, ご注文控 (go-chūmon hikae, meaning order copy), to the pickup point. The Umeda, Kyoto, Kobe and Fukuoka Tenjin stores mail no slip and check your order against the confirmation email instead.
Delivered cakes arrive frozen. Thaw one in a fridge for about 6 to 10 hours, never at room temperature, and do not refreeze it. For a cake on the evening of 24 December, the store says to move it into the fridge that morning. Before you choose delivery, check that your room has a fridge. Product pages also flag any of eight specified allergens: egg, milk, wheat, buckwheat, peanut, shrimp, crab and walnut.
Japan Christmas markets: Sapporo, Tokyo and Osaka
Sapporo has the clearest 2026 plan. The Munich Christmas Market in Sapporo runs from 20 November to 25 December 2026, open 11:00 to 21:00. It stands in the 2-chome block of Odori Park, about 5 minutes on foot from Odori subway station. The site has no parking, so come by subway or on foot.
The market lists the Sapporo White Illumination committee as its contact, and the lights fill the same park until Christmas Day. From New Chitose Airport, the fastest train reaches Sapporo in 33 minutes for 1,230 yen. The photo below shows the market in Odori Park.
Tokyo has several Christmas markets, and GO TOKYO’s guides tell you where to find them. The dated details in those guides come from the 2025 season. The GO TOKYO December guide features the Tokyo Christmas Market at Jingu Gaien, a spot famous for its ginkgo trees. Its centrepiece is a 14-metre Christmas Pyramid imported from Germany. Many of the city’s markets serve mulled wine and put on performances and concerts.
The GO TOKYO Winter Illumination Guide adds three markets from the 2025 season.
- Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi: a Christmas market inside, and a skating rink with real ice outside.
- Tokyo Skytree Town: a Christmas market with food and drink, while the tower itself glows with special Christmas lighting.
- Marunouchi, near Tokyo Station: Marunouchi Street Park 2025 Winter put a market and food trucks on Naka-dori Street. On Gyoko-dori, mountain-hut-style shops served classic Christmas dishes.
In Osaka, the event that covers Christmas week is OSAKA Hikari-Renaissance 2026. It runs for 15 days, from Friday 11 December to Friday 25 December, between Osaka City Hall and Nakanoshima Park. Some displays start on 3 November and stay up until 31 December, and opening hours vary by display. For more winter ideas by region, see our guide to places to visit in Japan in winter.
Christmas lights in Japan: 2026 dates
Sapporo and Osaka have set their 2026 dates. The Sapporo White Illumination is free and switches on at five sites on 20 November 2026. The Odori Park site closes on 25 December, and the Ekimae-dori site stays lit until 11 February 2027. Minami 1-jo Street, Kita 3-jo Plaza (Akapla) and the Sapporo Station south exit square keep going until 14 March 2027. A sixth site in Nakajima Park is planned for early to late January 2027. The organisers note that times may change.
The table below lists the 2026 dates for Sapporo and Osaka side by side.
| Event | Where | 2026–27 dates | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Munich Christmas Market in Sapporo | Odori Park (2-chome), Sapporo | 20 Nov–25 Dec 2026 | Open 11:00–21:00 |
| Sapporo White Illumination | Odori Park, Sapporo | 20 Nov–25 Dec 2026 | Free |
| Sapporo White Illumination | Ekimae-dori, Sapporo | 20 Nov 2026–11 Feb 2027 | Free |
| Sapporo White Illumination | Minami 1-jo, Akapla and Sapporo Station south square | 20 Nov 2026–14 Mar 2027 | Free |
| Midosuji Illumination 2026 | Midosuji, Osaka | 3 Nov–31 Dec 2026 | Lit from about 17:00 to 1:00 |
| OSAKA Hikari-Renaissance 2026 | Osaka City Hall to Nakanoshima Park | 11–25 Dec 2026 | Hours vary by display |
The Osaka Festival of Lights 2026, the 14th edition, runs for 90 days from Tuesday 3 November 2026 to Sunday 31 January 2027. From 1 January, only some area programmes continue. Its two core events are the Midosuji Illumination and OSAKA Hikari-Renaissance. The Midosuji Illumination runs for 59 days, from 3 November to 31 December 2026.
The Midosuji lights stretch from the Hanshin-mae crossing in Kita Ward to the Namba-nishiguchi crossing in Chuo Ward. They stay on from about 17:00 until 25:00, which is Japanese shorthand for 1:00 the next morning. The City of Osaka page below, in Japanese, announced the 2026 dates on 26 May 2026.
For Tokyo, the latest official figures come from the 2025 season. GO TOKYO’s guides give these examples:
- Tokyo Dome City: 2025 was its 21st winter illumination, scaled up from 650,000 to 1,000,000 lights. The main tree stood about 15 metres tall with about 250,000 LEDs, and a show ran every 15 minutes.
- Tokyo Tower: its Winter Fantasy 2025 display began on 17 November 2025, with 43,000 LEDs.
- Midtown Christmas, Roppongi: a Santa Tree covered in around 1,600 Santa ornaments.
- Marunouchi: the trees along Naka-dori glow in champagne gold, and the lights run to Tokyo Kotsu Kaikan in front of Yurakucho Station.
Tokyo’s lights also outlast Christmas. GO TOKYO notes that many of the city’s illuminations run until February, so you can still see them after 25 December. For other events across the country that month, see Japan in December.
Japan Christmas weather by city
Expect cold, mostly dry days in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, snow in Sapporo and mild weather in Okinawa. These are the Japan Meteorological Agency’s December averages for 1991 to 2020, from our month-by-month pages.
- Tokyo in December: average high 12.0°C (54°F), low 3.8°C (39°F), and 57.9 mm of rain on about 5.2 days.
- Kyoto in December: high 11.6°C (53°F), low 3.5°C (38°F), and 57.3 mm of rain or snow on about 6.6 days.
- Osaka in December: high 12.3°C (54°F), low 5.3°C (42°F), and 55.5 mm of rain on about 6.1 days.
- Sapporo in December: high 2.0°C (36°F), low −4.0°C (25°F), and 114.5 mm of rain or snow on about 16.0 days.
- Okinawa in December: in Naha, high 21.5°C (71°F), low 16.8°C (62°F), and 110.0 mm of rain on about 9.3 days.
The chart below compares the average December highs.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Tokyo | 12 °C |
| Kyoto | 11.6 °C |
| Osaka | 12.3 °C |
| Sapporo | 2 °C |
| Naha (Okinawa) | 21.5 °C |
A white Christmas is a Sapporo thing. In an average December, snow lies on the ground there on 26.7 days, and the deepest snow averages 47 cm. GO TOKYO puts Tokyo’s chance of December snow as small. Kyoto’s wet-day count includes snow, so flakes are possible there too.
In Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, a warm coat covers most days, and GO TOKYO suggests adding gloves, a scarf and a hat from mid-December. Sapporo drops below freezing at night, so bring full winter clothes. Naha is mild, with an average high of 21.5°C.
January is colder still, with the lowest average high of the year in all 14 places we track with temperature records. Each city’s December page covers what to wear, holidays, how busy hotels are and events.
Christmas week trains, hotels and closures
The travel rush starts on Christmas Day and runs into January. JR Central makes every Nozomi reserved-seat only from 25 December 2026 to 5 January 2027, a 12-day window. Book your seat as soon as your dates are fixed.
The peak comes on the way back to Tokyo. JR Central’s busiest day last winter was Sunday 4 January 2026, with 350,000 passengers heading to Tokyo. The reserved-only rule returns on 9–11 January 2027, the weekend of Coming of Age Day on Monday 11 January. Our January holidays page lists that weekend. The illustration below is a checklist of four things to sort out before a late-December trip.
Hotels fill up too. The Japan Tourism Agency’s overnight travel survey shows how full hotels were in December 2025. Tokyo reached 78.2%, Osaka 72.9%, Kyoto 67.0%, Sapporo 59.5% and Okinawa 51.9%. Japan had 3,617,791 visitors that month, the 5th busiest month of 2025. Our Japan hotel guide covers room types, city taxes and check-in. The chart below compares the five cities.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Tokyo | 78.2 % |
| Osaka | 72.9 % |
| Kyoto | 67 % |
| Sapporo | 59.5 % |
| Okinawa | 51.9 % |
Around New Year, many sights close for several days, and the national museums in Tokyo and Kyoto also close on Mondays. Check each place’s own calendar before you go, and see our New Year 2026–27 page for the closures we track.
Christmas shopping and the new tax-free refund
Christmas shopping in 2026 falls under Japan’s new tax-free rules. For purchases from 1 November 2026, tax-free shops charge the full price including consumption tax. You get the tax back after a customs check when you leave Japan, as the Japan Tourism Agency’s page for travellers explains. Our page on what changes on 1 November 2026 sets the old and new systems side by side.
The conditions are short:
- Spend 5,000 yen or more before tax in the same shop on the same day.
- Leave Japan within 90 days of the purchase, carrying the goods yourself.
- Expect 10% of the price before tax back, or 8% on food and drink other than alcohol.
- Keep every item from a receipt with you. If one is missing, nothing on that receipt is refunded.
At the airport, do the customs check before you check in your bags. Show your passport at a tax-free procedure terminal in the international departure lobby. A green result ends the check, and a red result sends you to a customs inspection point with the goods. At Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka, New Chitose and Naha, you can also go through Visit Japan Web on the dedicated Wi-Fi before security. The shop or its refund operator then pays the refund. Our step-by-step guide walks through each stage.
If the check makes you miss your flight, neither the airline nor customs pays compensation. If you connect from a domestic flight, do the check at the last airport where you leave Japan.
Food is the catch at Christmas. If you eat, drink or use up any food, drinks, medicine or cosmetics, nothing on that receipt is refunded. A Christmas cake you eat at your hotel never qualifies. If you have already used part of a purchase, tell the customs staff instead of using the terminal. Our page on using what you bought before you leave has the details.
Japan had 64,127 tax-free shops on 31 March 2026, including 16,145 in Tokyo and 7,115 in Osaka. Our tax-free shops by prefecture page has the Japan Tourism Agency figures for every prefecture.
FAQ
How do you say Merry Christmas in Japanese?
Say メリークリスマス (merī kurisumasu), borrowed from the English. Christmas Eve is クリスマス・イブ (kurisumasu ibu), and a Christmas cake is クリスマスケーキ (kurisumasu kēki). The last two appear on department store cake pages, so they help when you order.
Are shops and restaurants open on Christmas Day in Japan?
Yes. Friday 25 December 2026 is a normal working day, so shops, restaurants and banks keep their usual hours. Department stores hand over pre-ordered cakes on 23, 24 and 25 December. The closures come at New Year, when banks shut from 31 December to 3 January.
Does it snow in Japan at Christmas?
In Sapporo, yes. Snow lies on the ground there on 26.7 days in an average December, and the average high is 2.0°C. Tokyo has only a small chance of snow in December, with an average high of 12.0°C. In Kyoto, rain or snow falls on about 6.6 days in December.
When do the Christmas lights start in Japan?
In 2026, Osaka’s Midosuji Illumination starts on 3 November, and the Sapporo White Illumination starts on 20 November. In Tokyo, Tokyo Tower’s 2025 display began on 17 November. Many Tokyo illuminations stay on until February, so they are still lit after Christmas.
Photo: JP-Tokyo-Marunouchi-Nakadori(Street)-Night.jpg by Kanchi1979 (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
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