Christmas is an annual festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and is typically held on December 25 as not only a religious celebration but a cultural as well among billions of people around the world. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many countries, is celebrated culturally by a large number of non-Christian people. It is by far an integral part of the holiday season. It is true that some Christian groups reject even the idea of the celebration because of their beliefs and the definite fact that Jesus was not born on December 25. In several countries however, celebrating Christmas Eve on December 24 has the main focus rather than December 25, with gift-giving and sharing a traditional meal with the family as well as shopping and merrymaking.
While the month and date of Jesus’ birth are unknown, by the early-to-mid 4th century, the Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25, a date later adopted in the East. Today, most Christians celebrate Christmas on the date of December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, which is also the calendar in near-universal use in the secular world. However, some Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on the December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 in the Gregorian calendar, the day after the Western Christian Church celebrates the Epiphany.
The date of Christmas may have initially been chosen to correspond with the day exactly nine months after the day on which early Christians believed that Jesus was conceived, or with one or more ancient polytheistic festivals that occurred near the Roman winter solstice; a further solar connection has been suggested because of a biblical verse identifying Jesus as the “Sun of righteousness”.
