Kentucky Fried Christmas

I'll be honest, as achild Christmass was twenty minutes to half an hour of pure bliss, followed by about 14 hours of pure pain in the arse. The bliss was opening the presents and getting excited at all the potential the newness brings. The pain in the arse was the 2 hours of travel to my aunts house, the 4-6 hours of sitting around my aunts house bored shitless, then another 3 hours or so travel to Gippsland, for dinner with dad's side of the family, who were pretty laid back, but at this point I was turkey sleepy and sick of being shoved in a corner waiting for Christmass to end.
And then one or two days later we could trip home and get back to the presents that were all we could think about the whole time anyway, particularly if we'd gotten a new Sierra or Lucasarts computer game.
As I got older my parents got sick of all the travelling and eventually we started having home christmasses, also because my dad's family didn't care much we managed to reschedule christmass to another time. By driving age we were able to head home early after the lunch too so Christmass actually became quite enjoyable.
So whilst I felt some minor pangs at being isolated halfway across the world, part of my inner child delights at being able to get up in my own good time, eat moderately and basically have yet another day off. But having a day off on Christmass is all the sweeter.
Perhaps it is the collapse of the family unit, or the church, or community, but I do believe increasingly that the family is becoming more beholden to the same values we pick our friends by. I don't have anything particularly against my family immediate or extended, and since I learnt a lot of my values from them, the chances are we are going to get along. But I have almost nothing in common with my extended family, I don't really know them, don't ever talk or thing about them. But one state sponsered public holiday a year, we all get together.
Perhaps ours is extreme because the age difference is so great, but I imagine there are a lot of modern families whose kids are in the same boat.
I even know of a few families that are quite disfunctional to the point of open contempt that still get together for Christmas.
Its just that sense of obligation. I admit though that I now hate being alone more on Grand Final day than on Christmas days, yet yesterday I had to partake in a tradition through obligation despite my status as a reasoning animal.
That is the KFC christmass chicken. KFC owns Christmas here. So I set out determined to have my KFC christmass dinner. It ended up becoming quite a hike, my local roppongi has McDonalds, Mos Burger, Yoshinosha, CoCo, Wendys, TGI Fridays, Freshmart but no fucking KFC.
But I wandered the length and breadth of it, refusing an offer of 'tits and beer' from a Nigerian, and then explaining to another that I had to think about Jesus today not titties to another. Until eventually I resolved to catch a subway train to Shibuya were the young couples were engaging in their romantic Christmass trist at the numerous love hotels and I knew there to be at least two KFC stores. Its still called Kentucky Fried here, but they had the Colenel all dressed up as Santa out the front, and a special green and red menu, and all kinds of Christmass set menus.
I ordered one, headed upstairs, sat down by myself and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's perhaps the second time I've had KFC in year, I felt a pang of homesickness for the Brunswick KFC with its shitty service even by KFC's shitty standards. KFC is also fucking slow in Japan, which means they must actively train their service to be shit, because Kaizan I would have thought (japanese concept of gradual improvement may be 'kaizen') would have got them up to the most efficient operational standards by now.
But no, KFC is proud of its shitty service.
And I figure, if you are going to be alone on Christmass, a don't let some loser like Jesus, who got killed by his own dad make you feel bad on a day that isn't even really his birthday, and furthermore embrace it, get KFC (if its open I guess Australia and other predominantly Christian countries sort of force your hand a little) and enjoy the greasy feeling of Xmass.