Christmas

When it falls

25 December on the Gregorian calendar, with the vigil on Christmas Eve. The Orthodox churches on the Julian calendar keep the same feast on 7 January.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, in a stable because there was no room at the inn, announced to shepherds by angels and visited by magi from the east who followed a star. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell it; the date was fixed in Rome in the fourth century, near the winter solstice and the old festival of the unconquered Sun.

Around the feast the north of Europe wrapped its midwinter: the evergreen tree from Germany, the Yule log, holly and mistletoe, carols from the Middle Ages, and Saint Nicholas of Myra, who became Father Christmas and Santa Claus by way of the Dutch of New York.

In India the day is Baṛā Din, the big day, a public holiday everywhere; Goa, Kerala, Mumbai's Bandra and the north-east keep it with midnight mass, star lanterns at every door, and the crib (nativity scene) in the house.

How the day is kept

• Advent, the four weeks before: the wreath with its four candles, the calendar, and the crib set up with the manger left empty until the night.
• Midnight mass on the eve, with the Pope's at St Peter's broadcast worldwide; carol services and the singing from door to door.
• The tree decorated and lit, stockings hung, presents opened on the morning or on the eve by country, and the meal at midday with the whole family.
• In Kerala and Goa, the paper star (nakṣatra) hung outside every Christian home from the first of December, and the kuswar plate of sweets sent to the neighbours.

At the table

Roast turkey or goose, plum pudding and mince pies in the British line; in Goa, sorpotel and the bebinca layer cake; in Kerala, plum cake and appam with stew; Italy's panettone, Germany's stollen, France's bûche de Noël.

More holy days