• lunarul@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    That’s a very US-centric description though. There have been decades of slowly secularizing Christmas in the US (although I did notice a comeback of religious themed Christmas songs on the radio in the last couple of years).

    In my native country we celebrate Saint Nicholas on December 6th, and we get presents from him in our boots on that morning.

    Christmas is focused on the birth of Christ, not on Santa (who is not considered the same as St Nicholas and there are several legends about the origin of Santa, generally all connected to the birth of Jesus). Christmas dinner is a time for families to get together, similar to Thanksgiving in the US (but not waiting until midnight for the birth of Christ, we don’t have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, we have it on Christmas Day, celebrating the birth of Christ; Christmas Eve is the last day of fasting before Christmas).

    Also the 25th is just the first of 3 days of Christmas.