A round cream cake topped with strawberries and a “Merry Christmas” plaque, with a small Santa waving from behind it, a cupcake on either side, and a candy cane and a wrapped sweet in the corners. The shapes are big and rounded, so it suits children as well as anyone who prefers a page without fiddly detail. Free to download and print for home, the classroom or care-home activities — no registration needed.
🗣 Conversation Starters — for care activities and family time
Do you remember eating a cake with your family at Christmas?
What kind of Christmas cake do you like best — are you a strawberry shortcake person?
Do you remember blowing out the candles on a cake?
Tell us about a Christmas you spent with the children in the family.
Why is a strawberry cream cake the standard Christmas cake in Japan?
A Japanese Christmas cake is a soft sponge with whipped cream and strawberries — nothing like the dense fruit cakes sold elsewhere. The custom is usually credited to the confectioner Fujiya, which began selling a cake under that name in the early twentieth century, and it spread to ordinary households during the post-war boom years. The look is part of why it stuck: red strawberries, white cream and green decoration are the colours of the season, which is exactly the palette the cake in this picture is waiting for.
What do Christmas cakes look like in other countries?
France has the bûche de Noël, a rolled sponge shaped and iced to look like a log. Britain has Christmas pudding, a steamed cake heavy with dried fruit and nuts. Germany has stollen, a fruit bread thick with sugar. Those all keep for days or weeks, which is the opposite of a fresh-cream cake like this one — that kind is bought at the last minute and eaten straight away.
When is the cake actually eaten?
Most families eat it on Christmas Eve, December 24, or on the day itself. Bakeries in Japan start taking orders as soon as December begins, and the 24th and 25th are the busiest days of their year. Plenty of households now hold the party on the nearest weekend instead, so in practice the cake season stretches across several days rather than one.
