December 25 was also nine months after March 25, the date linked to Jesus's conception (celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation) and the date of the spring equinox on the Roman calendar. [17] Countries in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate Christmas in winter, which is why we often associate Christmas with words about winter. Meanwhile, countries in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate Christmas in summer. Christmas and its cycle". New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.3 (2nded.). Catholic University of America Press. 2002. pp.550–557. So, Christmases is the correct plural form of the word – Christmas’s for example is incorrect when used as the plural. a b Melton, J. Gordon (2011). Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations [2 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations. ABC-CLIO. p.39. ISBN 978-1-59884-206-7. The March 25 date, which tied together the beginning of Mary's pregnancy and the incarnation of God in Jesus as occurring nine months before Christmas (December 25), supplied the rationale for setting the beginning of the ecclesiastical and legal year. ... Both the Anglicans and the Lutherans have continued to observe the March 25 date for celebrating the Annunciation.

Christmas did not start in Germany, but many of the holiday’s traditions began there, including decorating trees. The celebration of Christmas started in Rome about 336, but it did not become a major Christian festival until the 9th century.Christmas cards are illustrated messages of greeting exchanged between friends and family members during the weeks preceding Christmas Day. The traditional greeting reads "wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", much like that of the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843. [222] The custom of sending them has become popular among a wide cross-section of people with the emergence of the modern trend towards exchanging E-cards. [223] [224] Christmas can be a busy time of year and there are a lot of things to think about. Grammar may not be at the top of your list! However, to save you the worry, you now know that if you want to talk about Christmas in the plural form you should use Christmases. Christmas’s or Christmas; can be used to describe something that belongs to Christmas. First established by King Edward VII, what happens to all guest on arrival and departure from the Royal Christmas gathering at Sandringham? Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. [94] Football, among the sports the Puritans banned on a Sunday, was also used as a rebellious force: when Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule. [118] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing. [119] During the ban, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret. [115] The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas, (1686), published after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England A second view suggests that December 25 became the date of Jesus’ birth by a priori reasoning that identified the spring equinox as the date of the creation of the world and the fourth day of creation, when the light was created, as the day of Jesus’ conception (i.e., March 25). December 25, nine months later, then became the date of Jesus’ birth. For a long time the celebration of Jesus’ birth was observed in conjunction with his baptism, celebrated January 6.

Some jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, including those of Russia, Georgia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Jerusalem, mark feasts using the older Julian calendar. As of 2023, there is a difference of 13 days between the Julian calendar and the modern Gregorian calendar, which is used internationally for most secular purposes. As a result, December 25 on the Julian calendar currently corresponds to January 7 on the calendar used by most governments and people in everyday life. Therefore, the aforementioned Orthodox Christians mark December 25 (and thus Christmas) on the day that is internationally considered to be January 7. [241]Eastern Orthodox Church jurisdictions, including those of Constantinople, Bulgaria, Ukraine [246] (state holiday, Orthodox and Greek Catholic), Greece, Romania, Antioch, Alexandria, Albania, Cyprus, Finland, the Orthodox Church in America. Although it follows the Julian calendar, the Ancient Church of the East decided on 2010 to celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar date. In most European countries, gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve, December 24, in keeping with the notion that the baby Jesus was born on the night of the 24th. The morning of December 25, however, has become the time for the exchange of gifts in North America. In 17th- and 18th-century Europe the modest exchange of gifts took place in the early hours of the 25th when the family returned home from the Christmas mass. When the evening of the 24th became the time for the exchange of gifts, the Christmas mass was set into the late afternoon of that day. In North America the centrality of the morning of the 25th of December as the time for the family to open presents has led, with the exception of Catholic and some Lutheran and Episcopal churches, to the virtual end of holding church services on that day, a striking illustration of the way societal customs influence liturgical practices. a b c d e f Bradshaw, Paul (2020). "The Dating of Christmas". In Larsen, Timothy (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Christmas. Oxford University Press. pp.7–10.

Christmas’s” is the correct possessive form of Christmas, indicating ownership or association with the holiday. We recently learned that adding the apostrophe creates the possessive singular noun. Who wrote the poem "King John's Christmas" that begins with the lines "King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he"?Various factors contributed to the choice of December 25. It was the date of the winter solstice in the Roman Empire, [42] [16] [53] [54] where most Christians lived. Christmas emerged during "the peak of state-sponsored sun worship" in the empire. [55] Since AD 274, the Roman festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of Sol Invictus, the 'Invincible Sun') had been held on December 25. [42] The early Church linked Jesus Christ to the Sun and referred to him as the 'Sun of Righteousness' ( Sol Justitiae) prophesied by Malachi. [51] [56] The early Christian writer Lactantius wrote "the east is attached to God because he is the source of light and the illuminator of the world and he makes us rise toward eternal life". It is for this reason that the early Christians established the direction of prayer as being eastward, towards the rising sun. [40] A late fourth-century sermon by Saint Augustine explains why the winter solstice was a fitting day to celebrate Christ's birth:

Some early Christians marked Jesus's crucifixion on a date they deemed equivalent to the 14th of Nisan, the day before Passover in the Hebrew calendar. This feast was referred to as the Quartodeciman (Latin for "fourteenth"). Some early Christian writers equated the 14th of Nisan with the equinox on March 25, and made the date of his conception or birth the same as that of his death. [70] [71] Duchesne conjectured that Jesus was thought to have been born and died on the same day, so lived a whole number of years, "since symbolic number systems do not permit the imperfection of fractions". However, he admitted that this theory is not supported by any early Christian text. [72] Correspondence between Julian January 6 and Gregorian January 19 holds until 2100; in the following century the difference will be one day more. Roll, Susan K. (1995). Toward the Origins of Christmas. Peeters Publishers. p.133. ISBN 978-90-390-0531-6. With the spread of Christianity beyond Europe and North America, the celebration of Christmas was transferred to societies throughout the non-Western world. In many of these countries, Christians are not the majority population, and, therefore, the religious holiday has not become a cultural holiday. Christmas customs in these societies thus often echo Western traditions because the people were exposed to Christianity as a religion and cultural artifact of the West.

Christ·mas

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas). [147] The School Journal, Volume 49. Harvard University. 1894 . Retrieved April 2, 2009. Throughout the Christian world the 25th of December is celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. There was a time when the churches were not united regarding the date of the joyous event. Many Christians kept their Christmas in April, others in May, and still others at the close of September, till finally December 25 was agreed upon as the most appropriate date. The choice of that day was, of course, wholly arbitrary, for neither the exact date not the period of the year at which the birth of Christ occurred is known. For purposes of commemoration, however, it is unimportant whether the celebration shall fall or not at the precise anniversary of the joyous event. The neighborhood’s annual Christmas’ party was a grand affair, filled with laughter, music, and delicious treats.” In most Western nations, Christmas Day is the least active day of the year for business and commerce; almost all retail, commercial and institutional businesses are closed, and almost all industries cease activity (more than any other day of the year), whether laws require such or not. In England and Wales, the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prevents all large shops from trading on Christmas Day. Similar legislation was approved in Scotland in 2007. Film studios release many high-budget movies during the holiday season, including Christmas films, fantasy movies or high-tone dramas with high production values to hopes of maximizing the chance of nominations for the Academy Awards. [257]