Christmas and holiday season
The Christmas season or the festive season, also known as the holiday season or the holidays, is an annual period generally spanning from November or December to early January incorporating Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The gift-giving associated with the season creates a peak season for the retail sector extending to the end of the period. Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies are customary traditions in various locales.
In Western Christianity, the Christmas season is traditionally synonymous with Christmastide, which runs from December 25 to January 5, popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas. Christmas in Italy is one of the country's major holidays and begins on 8 December, with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the day on which traditionally the Christmas tree is mounted and ends on 5 January with Twelfth Night. Christmas is celebrated on December 25 Christmas Day, while the Christmas season extends beyond the holiday itself, commonly continuing through New Year’s Day and concluding on January 6 with the celebration of Epiphany. As the economic impact involving the anticipatory lead-up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Christmas season" began to also encompass the liturgical Advent season, the period of preparation observed in Western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until the night of Christmas Eve. The term "Advent calendar" continues to be widely known in Western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, as the Christian-associated Christmas holiday and liturgical season, in some circles, became increasingly commercialized and central to American economics and culture while religio-multicultural sensitivity rose, generic references to the season that omitted the word "Christmas" became more common in the corporate and public sphere of the United States, which has caused a semantics controversy. By the late 20th century, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and the new African American cultural holiday of Kwanzaa began to be considered in the U.S. as being part of the "holiday season", a term that as of 2013 had become equally or more prevalent than "Christmas season" in U.S. sources to refer to the end-of-the-year festive period. "Holiday season" has also spread in varying degrees to Canada; however, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the phrase "holiday season" is not widely understood to be synonymous with the Christmas–New Year period, and is often instead associated with summer holidays.
History
Winter solstice
The winter solstice may have been a special moment of the annual cycle for some cultures even during Neolithic times. This is attested by physical remains in the layouts of late Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland. The primary axes of both of these monuments seem to have been carefully aligned on a sight-line pointing to the winter solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset. It is significant that the Great Trilithon was oriented outwards from the middle of the monument, i.e. its smooth flat face was turned towards the midwinter Sun.Roman Saturnalia
was an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn, the god of time, held on December 17 of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through December 23. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves. In addition to being a religious celebration, Saturnalia served as a social leveler by temporarily suspending established hierarchies and reversing roles. Because the affluent and the poor could participate in the same celebrations without the customary social barriers, the festival promoted a sense of community delight. The poet Catullus called it "the best of days."Feast of the Nativity: Christmas
The earliest source stating December 25 as the date of birth of Jesus was Hippolytus of Rome, written very early in the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox which he placed on March 25, to which he then added nine months. There is historical evidence that by the middle of the 4th century, the Christian churches of the East celebrated the birth and the Baptism of the Lord on the same day, on January 8, while those in the West celebrated a Nativity feast on December 25 ; and that by the last quarter of the 4th century, the calendars of both churches included both feasts. The earliest suggestions of a feast of the Baptism of Jesus on January 6 during the 2nd century comes from Clement of Alexandria, but there is no further mention of such a feast until 361, when Emperor Julian attended a feast on January 6 that year.In the Christian tradition, the Christmas season is a period beginning on Christmas Day. In some churches, the season continues through Twelfth Night, the day before the Epiphany, which is celebrated either on January 6 or on the Sunday between January 2 and 8. In other churches, it continues until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls on the Sunday following the Epiphany, or on the Monday following the Epiphany if the Epiphany is moved to January 7 or 8. If the Epiphany is kept on January 6, the Church of England's use of the term Christmas season corresponds to the Twelve Days of Christmas, and ends on Twelfth Night.
This Christmas season is preceded by Advent, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, coinciding with the majority of the commercialized Christmas and holiday season. The Anglican Communion follows the Christmas season with an Epiphany season lasting until Candlemas, which is traditionally the 40th day of the Christmas–Epiphany season; meanwhile, in the Lutheran Churches and the Methodist Churches, Epiphanytide lasts until the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday.
Commercialisation and broadened scope
The Pew Research Center found that as of 2014, 72% of Americans support the presence of Christian Christmas decorations, such as the nativity scene, on government property; of that 72%, "survey data finds that a plurality of Americans say Christian symbols, such as nativity scenes, should be allowed on government property even if they are not accompanied by symbols from other faiths." Six in ten Americans attend church services during Christmastime, and "among those who don't attend church at Christmastime, a majority say they would likely attend if someone they knew invited them."In the United States, the holiday season "is generally considered to begin with the day after Halloween and end after New Year's Day". According to Axelrad, the season in the United States encompasses at least Christmas and New Year's Day, and also includes Saint Nicholas Day. The U.S. Fire Administration defines the "winter holiday season" as the period from December 1 to January 7. According to Chen et al., in China, the Christmas and holiday season "is generally considered to begin with the winter solstice and end after the Lantern Festival". In some stores and shopping malls, Christmas merchandise is advertised beginning after Halloween or even earlier in late October, alongside Halloween items. In the UK and Ireland, Christmas food generally appears on supermarket shelves as early as September or even August, while the Christmas shopping season itself starts from mid-November, when the high street Christmas lights are switched on.
Secular icons and symbols, such as Santa Claus, the Nutcracker, Jack Frost, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, are on display in addition to Christian displays of the nativity. Public holiday celebrations and observances similarly range from midnight mass to Christmas tree lighting ceremonies, Santa Claus parades, festive lights, sleigh ridings, church services, decorations, ornaments, traditions, festivals, outdoor markets, feasts, social gatherings and the singing of carols.
The precise definition of feasts and festival days that are encompassed by the Christmas and holiday season has become controversial in the United States over recent decades. While in other countries the only holidays included in the "season" are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, St. Stephen's Day/Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and Epiphany, in recent times, this term in the U.S. began to expand to include Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The expansion of the holiday season in the U.S. to encompass Thanksgiving is believed to have begun in the 1920s, when in major department stores Macy's and Gimbels launched competing Thanksgiving Day parades to promote Christmas sales. Due to the phenomenon of Christmas creep and the informal inclusion of Thanksgiving, the Christmas and holiday season has begun to extend earlier into the year, overlapping Veterans/Remembrance/Armistice Day, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night.