What Is Christmas? History, Traditions & 2026 Date

What Is Christmas?

Christmas is a public holiday observed on 25 December each year. For Christians it commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem, an event central to the theology of the Incarnation; for billions of others it has become a cultural festival centred on family gatherings, gift-giving, decorated trees, and seasonal food. Few dates in the global calendar carry such a dual identity — at once a sacred religious feast and a secular winter celebration.

More than 160 countries recognise Christmas as an official public holiday, making it one of the most widely observed dates in the world. Its customs have travelled far beyond their European Christian origins, absorbing local foods, weather, and folklore everywhere they have taken root, from beach barbecues in Sydney to KFC dinners in Tokyo.

When Is Christmas 2026?

Christmas Day 2026 falls on Friday, 25 December 2026. The date is fixed in the Gregorian calendar and does not move from year to year, although the day of the week shifts. In 2027, Christmas Day falls on Saturday, 25 December 2027, which means several countries — including the United Kingdom and the United States — will grant a substitute weekday off, typically the preceding Friday or following Monday.

Because Christmas 2026 lands on a Friday, much of Europe, the Commonwealth, and Latin America will see a natural long weekend: Christmas Day on the Friday, Boxing Day (or St Stephen's Day) on Saturday 26 December, followed by Sunday. Workers who take Christmas Eve as annual leave can extend the break to a full four days from Thursday 24 December through Sunday 27 December. In Germany, both 25 and 26 December are full public holidays known as the erster and zweiter Weihnachtsfeiertag (first and second Christmas Day).

The History of Christmas

The earliest Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus at all. The first centuries of the Church focused on Easter and the resurrection, and the Gospels themselves give no date for the Nativity. The earliest documented celebration of Christmas on 25 December appears in the Chronograph of 354, a Roman almanac compiled by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus, which lists natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae — "Christ born in Bethlehem of Judaea" — under the date.

Historians broadly agree that the choice of 25 December was both theological and strategic. The Roman Empire already marked the late-December solstice with two major festivals: Saturnalia, a week of feasting and gift-giving running from 17 December, and the festival of Sol Invictus ("the Unconquered Sun"), instituted by the emperor Aurelian in 274 AD on 25 December itself. By placing the Nativity on the same date, early Church leaders anchored the new feast in a familiar festive rhythm and offered a Christian reading of the lengthening daylight as the arrival of the Sol Iustitiae, the Sun of Righteousness. The conversion of the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century, and his subsequent patronage of Christianity, accelerated the festival's spread across the Roman world.

Through the medieval period, Christmas grew into a twelve-day cycle of feasts, mystery plays, and carols, blending with older midwinter customs across Europe. The Reformation disrupted that continuity. Puritan-led authorities in seventeenth-century England — and later in the colonies of New England — viewed Christmas as a popish indulgence with no scriptural warrant; the English Parliament formally banned its observance in 1647, and Boston outlawed celebrations from 1659 to 1681.

The Christmas familiar today is largely a Victorian reinvention. Charles Dickens's novella A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, helped re-centre the holiday on family, charity, and warmth. The same decade saw Prince Albert popularise the German Christmas tree in Britain after a widely reproduced 1848 illustration showed the royal family gathered around one at Windsor. The first commercial Christmas card was commissioned by Henry Cole in London in 1843, and the modern image of Santa Claus was crystallised by the American cartoonist Thomas Nast in the 1860s and refined by Coca-Cola advertising from the 1930s onwards. The commercial Christmas of the twentieth century — department-store window displays, recorded carols, mass-produced ornaments — built directly on this Victorian foundation.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

In the Christian liturgical calendar, Christmas is not a single day but a season. The four weeks before 25 December form Advent, a period of preparation marked by Advent calendars, wreaths with four candles, and the gradual approach to the feast. Christmas Eve (24 December) is observed in many countries with a vigil mass and, in much of continental Europe, the main family meal and exchange of gifts.

Christmas Day itself opens the Twelve Days of Christmas, also called Christmastide, which run from 25 December through 5 January. Boxing Day or St Stephen's Day (26 December) is the second day of the season and a public holiday across the Commonwealth, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. The Twelve Days close with Twelfth Night on the evening of 5 January, leading into the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January, which commemorates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus and is itself a public holiday in Italy, Spain, Austria, and parts of Germany.

A separate calendar question explains why some Christians celebrate Christmas nearly two weeks later. Most Eastern Orthodox churches — including those of Russia, Serbia, Georgia, Ethiopia, and the Coptic Church of Egypt — still calculate fixed feasts using the older Julian calendar, which now runs thirteen days behind the Gregorian. Their 25 December therefore falls on 7 January in the civil calendar, the date now observed as Orthodox Christmas in those communities.

How Christmas Is Celebrated Around the World

United States and Canada

Christmas in North America blends nineteenth-century European settler traditions with twentieth-century popular culture. Households decorate a Christmas tree, exchange wrapped gifts on the morning of 25 December, and gather for a midday or evening dinner centred on roast turkey or glazed ham. Santa Claus — a figure descended from the Dutch Sinterklaas and reshaped by American illustrators — is said to deliver presents overnight to children who hang stockings by the fireplace. The cultural ideal of a "White Christmas," popularised by Bing Crosby's 1942 recording, remains a powerful part of the American imagination even in regions where snow is rare. Christmas Day was formally designated a federal holiday under the Act of June 28, 1870 (16 Stat. 168) — the same statute that made Independence Day, New Year's Day, and Thanksgiving Day federal holidays, originally for federal employees in the District of Columbia and extended nationwide in 1885.

United Kingdom

British Christmas centres on the family meal and a sequence of small rituals. Diners pull Christmas crackers containing paper crowns, a riddle, and a small toy; the King's Speech, a tradition begun by George V in 1932, is broadcast on television at 3 pm on Christmas Day; and the table typically features roast turkey, mince pies, and a flaming Christmas pudding doused in brandy. Boxing Day (26 December) is a bank holiday given over to football fixtures — the Premier League's Boxing Day programme is one of the most-watched dates in the English football calendar — and to the start of the post-Christmas sales. Christmas Day and Boxing Day are codified as bank holidays under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, which superseded the Bank Holidays Act 1871 and authorises the monarch to designate holidays by royal proclamation each year.

Germany

Germany has shaped Christmas more than any other country. The decorated Tannenbaum is documented in Strasbourg as early as the sixteenth century, the Adventskalender emerged from Lutheran homes in the nineteenth, and the country still hosts more than 2,500 Christmas markets — the Christkindlmarkt of Nuremberg and the Striezelmarkt of Dresden among the oldest. Families typically exchange gifts on the evening of 24 December (Heiliger Abend), gather around platters of Stollen fruit bread, and observe both 25 and 26 December as full public holidays.

Italy

Italian Christmas is deeply Catholic and centres on the Vatican, where the Pope celebrates Midnight Mass in St Peter's Basilica and delivers the Urbi et Orbi blessing on Christmas Day. Families eat panettone, the tall domed sweet bread originating in Milan, and the season runs through to 6 January, when the gift-giver of Italian folklore — La Befana, a kindly old woman on a broomstick — fills children's stockings on the eve of the Epiphany.

Spain and Latin America

In Spain, much of Mexico, and the wider Hispanophone world, Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) is the principal evening, marked by the Misa de Gallo (Mass of the Rooster) at midnight. The main day for children's gifts, however, is traditionally 6 January, when the Three Kings (los Reyes Magos) are said to deliver presents in re-enactment of the visit of the Magi. In Mexico, the nine nights leading up to Christmas Eve are filled with Las Posadas — candlelit processions in which neighbours re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for shelter in Bethlehem.

Brazil

Christmas in Brazil falls in midsummer, and customs reflect the warm climate. Families hold large Christmas Eve dinners that often run past midnight, featuring roast turkey, farofa, rabanada, and the now-ubiquitous Chester chicken, a brand-name bird marketed specifically for the season. Papai Noel is said to arrive from Greenland in lightweight silk rather than fur. Public decorations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are lit through December despite tropical heat.

Ethiopia and Egypt

Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrate Ganna (also spelt Genna) on 7 January, following the Julian calendar. Worshippers fast through the preceding night and attend a dawn service, often dressed in white shamma robes; the day's traditional dish is doro wat, a spiced chicken stew served with injera. Egypt's Coptic Orthodox community likewise observes Christmas on 7 January, which has been a national public holiday in Egypt since 2002.

Australia and New Zealand

Christmas falls in the height of the Southern Hemisphere summer, and traditions have adapted accordingly. Many Australian and New Zealand households swap roast dinners for beach barbecues, cold platters of prawns and seafood, and outdoor lunches under sun shades. A growing parallel custom of "Christmas in July" — pubs and restaurants stage faux-winter Christmas dinners in the cooler month — gives a second chance at the cosy European version of the festival.

Japan

Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan, but it has become commercially and culturally significant. The day is treated less as a family occasion than as a romantic one, akin to Valentine's Day, with couples exchanging gifts and dining out. The most widely noted tradition is the KFC Christmas dinner, born of a 1974 marketing campaign called Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii ("Kentucky for Christmas") that has since become a national phenomenon — many families place orders weeks in advance.

Philippines

The Philippines observes the longest Christmas season in the world, with carols and decorations appearing as early as September and continuing through to the Feast of the Three Kings in early January. The defining ritual is Simbang Gabi, a series of nine pre-dawn masses held from 16 to 24 December. Streets and homes are lit with parol — star-shaped lanterns made of bamboo and capiz shells — and the centrepiece of Christmas Eve dinner (Noche Buena) is lechon, whole roast pig.

Christmas Foods Around the World

Christmas is a food festival as much as a religious one, and almost every country contributes its own dish. Roast turkey dominates British and American tables; glazed ham is a popular alternative in the United States, Australia, and parts of northern Europe. Germany favours roast goose with red cabbage and dumplings, while Portugal and parts of Brazil feature bacalhau, salt cod prepared in dozens of regional ways.

Sweet baking varies just as widely. Italy's panettone and pandoro are now exported worldwide; Germany contributes Stollen and Lebkuchen gingerbread; Britain offers the dense, brandy-soaked Christmas pudding alongside mince pies filled with spiced dried fruit. Mexico's tamales are wrapped and steamed in vast batches for family gatherings, and the Philippines' bibingka — a coconut-and-rice cake baked in clay pots — is sold outside churches after Simbang Gabi. New Zealand's Maori communities prepare hangi, a feast cooked in an earth oven, while Japan's KFC bucket has become an unlikely seasonal staple. Eggnog, a rich drink of milk, eggs, sugar, and rum or brandy, links the Christmas tables of the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Christmas as a Public Holiday

Christmas Day is an official public holiday in more than 160 countries, but the surrounding observances differ significantly.

The treatment of weekend Christmases is a useful point of comparison. The United Kingdom and United States apply substitute day rules, granting the nearest weekday off when 25 December falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Germany and several other continental countries simply lose the holiday in those years, with no replacement weekday.

Christmas Economic Impact

Christmas is the single largest commercial event of the year in most Christian-majority economies. United Kingdom Christmas spending — across food, gifts, travel, and hospitality — has been estimated at well over £100 billion in recent years, while United States holiday retail sales regularly exceed $1 trillion between November and December. The phenomenon known as "Christmas creep" has pushed the start of the retail season ever earlier, with displays now appearing in many American stores by early October and Black Friday functioning as the unofficial opening of the gift-buying period.

The balance between online and in-store shopping has shifted decisively toward e-commerce since the late 2010s, although physical Christmas markets, garden centres, and department stores remain culturally important. The modern Christmas card industry traces directly to Henry Cole's commercial card of 1843, printed in London and now reproduced in billions of copies each year worldwide.

Countries Where Christmas Is Not a Public Holiday

Christmas is not an official public holiday in a number of countries with non-Christian majorities, although it is often observed informally by expatriate or minority communities.

• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do not recognise Christmas as a public holiday, though private celebrations and hotel events have become common in the UAE in recent years.
• Iran and Afghanistan treat 25 December as an ordinary working day; Iran's small Armenian Christian community observes its own liturgical calendar.
• China observes Christmas commercially — shopping malls, hotels, and restaurants stage festive promotions — but it has no public-holiday status, and government policy in some periods has discouraged official celebrations.
• Japan treats Christmas as a commercial and romantic occasion rather than a religious or official one.
• North Korea does not recognise the holiday in any form.
• India observes Christmas as a national gazetted holiday, but the practical effect varies by state and sector; it is a more prominent public occasion in Goa, Kerala, and the north-east than in Hindu-majority regions.

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Key Facts

Sources

1. Chronography of 354, Calendar of Filocalus — https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_06_calendar.htm
2. UK Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/80
3. Bank Holidays Act 1871, original text reproduced in A Treatise on the Law of Banking — https://archive.org/details/treatiseonbanki00walk/page/334/mode/2up
4. Act of June 28, 1870, 16 Stat. 168 — https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-16/pdf/STATUTE-16-Pg168a.pdf