Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25, as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast. It initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on the Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many countries, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season organized around it.

The traditional Christmas narrative recounted in the New Testament, known as the Nativity of Jesus, says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in accordance with messianic prophecies. When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room, so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels proclaiming this news to shepherds who then spread the word.

There are different hypotheses regarding the date of Jesus' birth, and in the early fourth century, the church fixed the date as December 25. This corresponds to the traditional date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar. It is exactly nine months after Annunciation on March 25, also the date of the spring equinox. Most Christians celebrate on December 25, in the Gregorian calendar, which has been adopted almost universally in the civil calendars used in countries throughout the world. However, part of the Eastern Christian Churches celebrates Christmas on December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. For Christians, believing that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than knowing Jesus' exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose of celebrating Christmas.

The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift giving; completing an Advent calendar or Advent wreath; Christmas music and caroling; viewing a Nativity play; an exchange of Christmas cards; church services; a special meal; and the display of various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, garlands, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore.] Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. Over the past few centuries, Christmas has had a steadily growing economic effect in many regions of the world.

 

The English word  Christmas is a shortened form of  Christ's Mass. The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131. Crīst is from Greek Khrīstos, a translation of Hebrew,  Messiah, meaning anointed; and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist.

The form Christenmas was also used during some periods but is now considered archaic and dialectal. The term derives from Middle English Cristenmasse, meaning  Christian mass. Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi in Greek Khrīstos, although some style guides discourage its use. This abbreviation has precedent in Middle English Χρ̄es masse.

Other names

In addition to  Christmas, the holiday has had various other English names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as midwinter or, more rarely, as Nātiuiteð.  Nativity, meaning birth, is from the Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola (Yule) referred to the period corresponding to December and January, eventually equating with Christian Christmas.  Noel  (also  Nowel or  Nowell, as in  The First Nowell ) entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis meaning birth.

Nativity

The gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary. In the book of Luke, Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, and Jesus was born there and placed in a manger. Angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him. The book of Matthew adds that the magi followed a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the king of the Jews. King Herod ordered the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family fled to Egypt and later returned to Nazareth.

 

The nativity sequences included in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke prompted early Christian writers to suggest various dates for the anniversary. Although no date is indicated in the gospels, early Christians connected Jesus to the Sun through the use of such phrases as the Sun of righteousness. The Romans marked the winter solstice on December 25. The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome on December 25, AD 336. In the 3rd century, the date of nativity was the subject of great interest. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote:

Some have determined not only the year of our Lord's birth but also the day, and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20] ... Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].

Various factors contributed to the selection of December 25 as a date of celebration: it was the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar, and it was nine months after March 25, the date of the vernal equinox and a date linked to the conception of Jesus (celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation).

Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. After this controversy ran its course, the prominence of the holiday declined for a few centuries. The feast regained prominence after 800 when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day.

In Puritan England, Christmas was banned, with Puritans considering it a Catholic invention and also associating the day with drunkenness and other misbehavior. It was restored as a legal holiday in England in 1660 when Puritan legislation was declared null and void, but it remained disreputable in the minds of some. In the early 19th century, Christmas festivities and services became widespread with the rise of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England that emphasized the centrality of Christmas in Christianity and charity to the poor, along with Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and other authors emphasizing family, children, kind-heartedness, gift-giving, and Santa Claus (for Irving), or Father Christmas (for Dickens).

At the time of the 2nd century, the earliest church records indicate that  Christians were remembering and celebrating the birth of the Lord; an observance sprang up organically from the authentic devotion of ordinary believers. Though Christmas did not appear on the lists of festivals given by the early Christian writers Irenaeus and Tertullian, the Chronograph of 354 records that a Christmas celebration took place in Rome eight days before the calends of January. This section was written in AD 336, during the brief pontificate of Pope Mark.

In the East, the birth of Jesus was celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6. This holiday was not primarily about the nativity but rather the baptism of Jesus. Christmas was promoted in the East as part of the revival of Orthodox Christianity that followed the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced in Constantinople in 379, in Antioch by John Chrysostom towards the end of the fourth century, probably in 388, and in Alexandria in the following century.

 

The calculation hypothesis suggests that an earlier holiday, the Annunciation, held on March 25, became associated with the Incarnation. Christmas was then calculated as nine months later. The calculation hypothesis was proposed by French writer Louis Duchesne in 1889. The Bible in Luke 1:26 records the annunciation to Mary to be at the time when Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, was in her sixth month of pregnancy (cf. Nativity of Saint John the Baptist). The ecclesiastical holiday was created in the seventh century and was assigned to be celebrated on March 25; this date is nine months before Christmas, in addition to being the traditional date of the equinox. It is unrelated to the Quartodeciman, which had been forgotten by this time. Forgotten by everyone except the Jews, of course, who continued to observe Passover; also a Quartodeciman feast.

Early Christians celebrated the life of Jesus on a date considered equivalent to 14 Nisan (Passover) on the local calendar. Because Passover was held on the 14th of the month, this feast is referred to as the Quartodeciman. All the major events of Christ's life, especially the passion, were celebrated on this date. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Passover, presumably celebrated according to the local calendar in Corinth. Tertullian, who lived in Latin-speaking North Africa, gives the date of the passion celebration as March 25. The passion date was moved to Good Friday in 165 when Pope Soter created Easter by reassigning the Resurrection to a Sunday. According to the calculation hypothesis, the celebration of the Quartodeciman continued in some areas, and the feast became associated with the Incarnation.

The calculation hypothesis is considered academically to be a viable hypothesis, though not certain. It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men were born and died on the same day, so lived a whole number of years, without fractions: Jesus was therefore considered to have been conceived on March 25, as he died on March 25, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan. A passage in Commentary on the Prophet Daniel (204) by Hippolytus of Rome identifies December 25 as the date of the nativity. This passage is generally considered a late interpolation. But the manuscript includes another passage, one that is more likely to be authentic, that gives the passion as March 25.

In 221, Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240) gave March 25 as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus in his universal history. This conclusion was based on solar symbolism, with March 25 as the equinox date. As this implies a birth in December, it is sometimes claimed to be the earliest identification of December 25 as the nativity. However, Africanus was not such an influential writer that he likely determined the date of Christmas.

The treatise De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae, pseudepigraphical attributed to John Chrysostom and dating to the early fourth century, also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as March 25. This anonymous tract also states:  But Our Lord, too, is born in December ... the eight before the calends of January [25 December] ..., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord...? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice.

Solstice date hypothesis

December 25 was considered the winter solstice date in the Roman calendar, though actually, it occurred on the 23rd or 24th at that time. A late fourth-century sermon by Saint Augustine explains why this was a fitting day to celebrate Christ's nativity:  Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase. 

Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the  Sun of righteousness prophesied by Malachi:  Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings.

Such solar symbolism could support more than one date of birth. An anonymous work known as De Pascha Computus linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox, on March 25, with the conception or birth of Jesus on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in the Genesis account. One translation reads:  O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, March 28 a Wednesday, Christ should be born.

In the 17th century, Isaac Newton, who, coincidentally, was born on December 25, argued that the date of Christmas might have been selected to correspond with the solstice.

Conversely, according to Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta,  It is cosmic symbolism ... which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the northern solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception.