When I made a facebook post about seeing a movie on xmas night, my friend Jeff was quick to comment, “Hope you had some lo mein too.” Chinese food and movies are both good, if not necessarily related. But for a jew on christmas, they go together like money and controlling the media (I’m allowed to make those jokes).

Of course, jews aren’t the only ones enjoying a kung pao christmas. The fact that chinese restaurants are actually open makes them a good option for anyone who isn’t full of christmas ham. This Slate article looked at grubhub data and found that the proportion of chinese takout on christmas was 152% higher than normal. [The best part of the article is the fact that the fourth most overrepresented chinese takout date is 4/20.]

Google agrees that chinese food is popular on xmas:

Note that that searches for “chinese food” peaked around Dec 25. The second highest level of search was at the end of January, which means that chinese food is more popular on christmas than it is on Chinese New Year (at least google-wise).

But I maintain that there is a special relationship between chinese food and the jewish people at this time of year. The proof is in the tweets:

Slightly more tweets about jewish chinese food on christmas eve than christmas day, but the trend is clear.

And since the only thing I like more than General Tso’s Chicken is a heatmap, here’s where the tweets are coming from:

 
Seems like it’s mostly a North American phenomenon with major hotspots in New York, California, and Florida. Closer to Santa’s workshop, Toronto, Ottawa, and even Winnipeg (Slurpee Capitol of the World) are tweeting about orange chicken, eh.

Not as much going on in the rest of the world, though I was happy to see Hawaii lit up (they really are a state!). A little activity in Ireland, India, and even a blip in Shanghai. Though I’m willing to admit that one might be a false positive since presumably they just call it “food” there.