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Christmas Day

Days left:
Christmas Day falls on 25.12.2024 (Wednesday)
The date of Christmas Day in other years:
Christmas Day 2023 - 25.12.2023 (Monday)
Christmas Day 2025 - 25.12.2025 (Thursday)
Christmas Day 2026 - 25.12.2026 (Friday)

Christmas Day

Christmas is the largest Christian holiday in the UK and Ireland; it is difficult to imagine, then, that it used to be frowned upon during the larger part of both millennia. Christmas Day closes the Advent period and starts the Christmastide, which finishes on January 5. In Ireland, this ends with Little Christmas on January 6, called Oíche Nollaig na mBan in Irish.

Although December 25 is the widely accepted date of Christ’s birth, there is no evidence for that. Research into the mystery of the date showed that Christmas was probably based on pagan festivities of Romans and Anglo-Saxons, which is why the holiday is sometimes called Nativity (“birth” in Latin) or Yule (deriving from the Germanic Old English).

The rich Christmas Day tradition is considerably similar in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, since it stems from common history.

The aforementioned pagan festivals revolved around the winter solstice, which usually fell on December 25; that is what Anglo-Saxons called “midwinter”. The traditions that the modern celebration of Christmas inherited were: making decorations out of holly, ivy and mistletoe, lighting fires (today’s Christmas lights and candles), preparing particular dishes and organizing home festivities. In the Christian era, the first official observance of the holiday took place in 336 in Rome. It was not welcomed warmly, however, and mostly ignored until the year 800, when Charles the Great became an Emperor on Christmas Day. Early England borrowed the coronation date for Edmund the Martyr in 855 and William I of England in 1066. There had been some prominent Christmas occasions featuring Kings from then on, but a new wave of disregard for the holiday came with the Protestant Reformation. England was divided between the opposing Puritans and the supporting Anglicans and Lutherans; in 1647, Puritans banned Christmas, but in 1660, the holiday was restored.

Christmas did not become a famous festivity overnight. It took two centuries for the English people to start acknowledging its worth. It was mainly Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that popularized all the virtues of the holiday; in the year of the novel’s publishing, Sir Henry Cole produced the first commercial Christmas card. Five years later, in 1848, Queen Victoria posed with her family to a photo in front of a Christmas Tree, which aroused general wonderment. Prior to the 1950s Christmas traditions were more common for upper class, but within the next century, the holiday transcended the social status. Both UK and Ireland finally established Christmas as an official bank holiday in the second half of the 20th century.

Great Britain did not only create the famous tradition of giving Christmas cards. The country is also responsible for a large number of beautiful carols, such as “Ding Dong Merrily on High”, “Good King Wenceslas”, or “Little Donkey”. These are annually presented in front of the Christmas Tree on Trafalgar Square; also children or choirs go from house to house and perform for neighbors. The singing, public and private, ceases with the end of Christmas Day. Another important feature of the British and Irish Christmas is the special cuisine, which many Anglophone countries have adopted: the dinner table is filled with minced pies, roast potatoes, turkey with cranberries, brussels sprouts, parsnips, pudding and cracker candy. It is also common for the children on the Isles to count down days on the chocolate Advent calendar. The original custom of nativity plays is becoming less and less popular nowadays, though many schools still try to uphold it.

What the UK and Ireland borrowed from Americans, who commercialized the holiday on an immense scale, is the legendary Santa Claus, who traditionally used to be called Father Christmas in England and in Ireland is named Santy or Daidí na Nollag. Presents from him are opened in every home on Christmas Day, with the exception of the Buckingham Palace, where the Royal family exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve. In Ireland, the important part of holiday celebrations is the Midnight Mass and, for some people, a Christmas swim in the sea, mostly as a contribution to charity. Many Irish homes display cribs with baby Jesus beside the traditional Christmas tree.

Christmas Day is a bank holiday in both Ireland and Great Britain, which is why most public organizations and private businesses are closed. It is an old European tradition that became prominent very recently due to the United States. Although many Christmas customs nowadays are taken from the American commercial appeal, Great Britain and Ireland maintain their national folkloristic mood. Christmas Day celebrations are still filled with old kinds of music and food.

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