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Christmas in France is a major annual celebration, as in most countries of the Christian world. Christmas is celebrated as a public holiday in France on December 25, concurring alongside other countries. Public life on Christmas Day is generally quiet. Post offices, banks, stores, restaurants, cafés and other businesses are closed. Many people ...
Père Noël is sometimes confused with another, older character. In Eastern France (Alsace and Lorraine regions), in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Germany, in Switzerland and in Eastern Europe (and nowadays also in the eastern states of the US) there is a parallel tradition to celebrate Saint Nicolas or Sinterklaas on December 5 or
Neapolitan presepio at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London, it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be "decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green". [4]
Beyond the familiar traditions like Santa Claus, a fir tree, caroling and gift-giving, a number of countries—including the U.S.—bring their own unique twists, both old and new, to the holiday.
The term is first documented in 18th-century France, [4] and was used by the French as a name for the night-long party dinners held by the nobility. [5] Eventually the word began to be used by other courts (amongst them the Portuguese courts) and after the French Revolution it was adopted as a definition of the New Year's Eve.
The Yule log is recorded in the folklore archives of much of England, but particularly in collections covering the West Country and the North Country. [9] For example, in his section regarding "Christmas Observances", J. B. Partridge recorded then-current (1914) Christmas customs in Yorkshire, Britain involving the Yule log as related by "Mrs. Day, Minchinhampton (Gloucestershire), a native of ...
The holiday feast, called le réveillon de Noël, is typically eaten around midnight on Christmas Day, and in some parts of France, it's traditional to eat 13 different desserts.
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