The Tradition
Day 3 is called Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii and the tradition comes from Japan. The first KFC outlet opened in Japan in 1970 and its manager was Takeshi Okawara. He came up with the idea of a creating a "party barrel" of KFC to be sold at Christmas after overhearing a couple of foreigners talking in his store about how they missed having turkey at Christmas whilst they are in Japan. He marketed his "party barrel" at Christmas in his store until KFC themselves took the idea up and marketed it across all of their Japan stores for Christmas 1974 under the name of Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii, or Kentucky for Christmas. It was a success and Takeshi Okawara rose through the company ranks quickly, serving as president and CEO of Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan from 1984 to 2002.
Previously, there was no Christmas tradition in Japan as the majority of Japanese people follow Shinto or Buddhism faiths, worshipping ancestors and spirits with only around 1% of the population following the Christian faith. Today an estimated 3.6 million Japanese families treat themselves to the special meal at KFC over Christmas period. Other families treat it as a time to have a romantic celebration, similar to St Valentines day, and have a meal in upscale restaurants and then there are some families that acknowledge the day but do not celebrate it in any form.
The meals are so popular over the Christmas period that you can't just walk in a get one. Most people pre-order the meal weeks in advance and if you don't do this then you could be waiting in line for hours to be able to get one and daily sales at some KFC restaurants can be 10 times that of any other time of year. It's not just barrels of fried chicken that is available, over the years the meals have morphed into banquets and you can now get fried chicken, cake and wine. In a country that puts a high value on its elders, they now also dress up the company mascot, Colonel Sanders, in Santa outfits.
The Fibre
The actual fibre content is different to that that was printed on the bags, see the comments in "My Thoughts" for full details. There are some kind of similarities with some colours maybe with some sort of branding but it is totally unintentional and this blend doesn't contain any interesting herbs or spices. It has a nice bold colour provided by the Corriedale and although Corriedale is not as soft as Merino it does have the same stitch definition when its being knitted or crocheted. It has a nice bulk to it, which you don't find in Merino blends and there are lovely little bits of Tweed running through it to add a little bit of extra colour and some texture. The lightness comes from the Lotus Fibre, which has just been blended throughout so instead of being a heavy dark red it lifts it quite a bit.
My Thoughts
I like this one, it's quite festive and could even represent Santa with the red suit, white trim and black accessories. I'm glad that the blends are not all super soft and fluffy, I like having a bit of a more hardwearing fibre too.
The information that has been printed on the bags is not necessarily correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards. The percentages that they originally gave on the chat boards was 60% Corriedale, 30% Tweed, 10% Lotus, which is different from the Corriedale, Lotus and Viscose that is printed on the bag and after some discussion it transpires that "Tweed" is actually 80% South American Wool, 20% Viscose and it took a little while to get the actual contents from them and work out the actual fibre percentages, which is 60% Corriedale, 24% South American Wool, 10% Lotus and 6% Viscose .
As a customer/consumer I don't want to know the percentage of "other blends" that are in the blend and I shouldn't have to then do research or ask questions to find out what is in that blend and do the maths to add those fibre percentages into the main blend fibre content percentages. Thankfully I was not the only one that brought this oversight up with them and they've been pretty good about it. I have now also adjusted the fibre content details on all other blends in my stash that contain "Tweed" to correct them to what they actually are. Thankfully I have not made any shawls or anything with any yarns that I have spun using this "Tweed" content.
What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens. This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.
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