Christmas Holiday

The best time of the year is fast approaching and although the celebrations are different this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the holiday spirit is still felt in the Bahamas. With the holidays from December 19 to January 1, the season offers festive activities that the whole family will enjoy. The luxurious Sugar Beach Viceroy Resort offers a range of holiday activities between December 22 and January 1, including a gingerbread house raffle, a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and more. 

The Christmas party at the end of December is certainly different from the festivities that already exist at this time of year at the winter solstice. The 12-day holiday season is celebrated from December 19 to January 1 in the US, Canada and Australia. This short Christmas season is preceded by Advent, which begins in early December and coincides with the majority of the commercialised Christmas period. 
    
For the Catholic Church, Christmas Eve, the evening before Christmas, is the beginning of the first Christmas Day. Christmas is followed by Christmas Day, which is a state-recognised holiday, also known as a holiday. The twelve days of Christmas correspond to the twelve days of Advent, from 19 December to 1 January, which end with Epiphany on 6 January. 
    
The exchange of gifts is central to Christmas and the Christmas season, and therefore the season is also included as Christmas shopping time. The time of shopping, which consists of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and Christmas morning, is not only linked to Christmas, but also to the birth of Christ, the first of the four incarnations of Jesus Christ. 
    
Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating the Christmas tree, going to church, eating with family and friends and, of course, waiting for Santa Claus. The singing of Christmas carols, especially traditional Christmas carols such as "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year," are also inseparable from Christmas. 
    
The holiday celebrations also range from midnight mass to the lighting of the Christmas tree, and the most popular are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. In many areas, it is a tradition to light Christmas trees when a tree decorated with ornaments and light bulbs is lit. The most common way to light a Christmas tree is to light it with candles and a light bulb. 
    
The Germanic people, who originally celebrated the Winter Heathens, are mainly known for Yule, which means "festival." There is also a day when servants can celebrate Christmas with their families, and gifts - giving was already common in the Roman Empire at the time of Saturnalia. In addition to celebrating the winter solstice on December 25, the Romans also celebrated a "Saturnalia," a festival named after Saturn. 
    
If children are at school and parents have time off over Christmas, the holiday schedule may include a winter break or holiday period in the year. Parents can have the same Christmas period every year or switch between Christmas and Christmas Eve. One parent can alternate Christmas and New Year, and the other parents can alternate Christmas or New Year. If one parent has Christmas in the middle of the holidays, such as December 25, January 1 or January 2, it can be Christmas - and New Year - while the other parents have Christmas Eve or Christmas every year, but alternately. They can either have or have the same "Christmas holidays" each year, or alternate. 
    
According to Axelrad, the season in the USA includes at least Christmas and New Year's Day, but also St. Nicholas Day. The father has Christmas on December 31 and winter break on December 31, the mother has Christmas holidays on an even day. Here in Germany mothers have Christmas in odd years, fathers Christmas in odd years. In the US, mothers had Christmas Eve and fathers even years; here in Europe, mothers had "Christmas holidays" to "even" years, fathers "Christmas holidays" to odd years, and mothers "had Christmas evenings." 
    
Scandinavian countries use "Yule" to describe their own Christmas, which they have as their religious rite. Admittedly, we do not have much information about how it was celebrated in pagan Germany, but we know that Germanic and Nordic pagans attached religious importance to other common Christmas symbols such as mistletoe.