Curry Christmas and Kebab-y New Year

Pretty much anything goes on Christmas Day: chocolate for breakfast; Bailey’s at lunchtime; wearing pyjamas all day long; eating roast potatoes until you feel sick; falling asleep at 4pm; waking up confused and hungover at midnight and ordering a kebab to soak up all that Bailey’s and brandy and the six snowballs you had even though you’re not properly sure what they are.

The kebab may not be a longstanding Christmas tradition in every household, but five per cent of Brits chose to order one from their local takeaway last Christmas Day, according to Hungryhouse.co.uk. Now, we’re not sure whether the kebab replaced Christmas dinner, but we do sincerely hope these festive kebab-orderers were able to opt for cranberry sauce rather than garlic mayo.

Kebabs weren’t even the most popular Christmas Day takeaway last year – that crown went to pizza. Some 12,960 Brits ordered a pizza on December 25th 2016, which accounted for 31 per cent of all festive takeaways.

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Margherita was the most popular Christmas Day pizza – perhaps to allow diners to salvage the remains of their half-ruined turkey dinner and turn it into a festive pizza? We also can’t help but wonder whether this is because some can’t figure out what to make for their vegetarian guests, so think a cheese and tomato pizza is a safe choice. This is why veggies should always carry a nut roast around with them at Christmas time (unwritten rule).

Meat feast was the second most common Christmas pizza order, because apparently turkey, goose, ham, chicken and a three-bird roast just isn’t enough meat for some people. Where’s the pepperoni in there?!

Hawaiian came in third, because there’s nothing more festive than a controversial pineapple-topped pizza?

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Of course, not everybody celebrates Christmas, which is one of the main reasons why so many takeaways open as usual on December 25th. Some people spend the day working or on their own, which makes cooking a turkey dinner with all the trimmings seem a bit extravagant, while for others it’s a well-deserved treat day. If Roses or mince pies aren’t your thing, then why on earth shouldn’t you treat yourself to a meat feast pizza? It’s Christmas, you can do whatever you like.

After pizza, fried chicken was last year’s next most popular Christmas Day takeaway order, accounting for 29 per cent of all deliveries, followed by burgers (20 per cent). Perhaps this is so people can recreate those monstrous-looking Christmas dinner burgers featuring turkey, pigs in blankets, sprouts and cranberry sauce that have been doing the rounds on social media for themselves?

Indian came in next, with 11 per cent of people in the UK ordering a curry on Christmas Day. Korma, biryani and tikka masala were the most popular picks, in that order.

This was followed by Chinese (eight per cent of all takeaway orders on December 25th), Lebanese (six per cent), kebabs and sushi (both five per cent), Thai food (four per cent) and lastly Persian cuisine, which accounted for three per cent of last year’s Christmas Day takeaway orders.

At first, we were a little taken aback by how many people order takeaways at Christmas, but now we’ve given it some thought, pepperoni pizza does sound more appealing than burnt Christmas pudding and even a doner kebab seems like a better prospect than Auntie Val’s trifle.

And, let’s be honest, if we were Santa, we’d be ordering in a pizza after that epic shift too.