Christmas Timeline
Detailed calendar of crucial events and feasts for Christ's birth
The time around Christmas is action packed with commemorations and celebrations of the many events that make up that first, magical Christmas.
The Season of Christmas begins on Christmas Eve, on 24 December. It ends on 8 January 2007. Next to the season of Easter it is the most eventful time for Christians of all stripes.
We don’t know exactly when Jesus was born: sometime between 8 and 2 BC. Neither do we know on which days in the year the events relating to that first Christmas took place. For instance, it is not clear when the supernova that the Star of Bethlehem may refer to occurred. The Church’s choice of December for Christmas was probably based more on the fact that, for millennia, large (pagan) festivals, like the Celtic Alban Arthuan and the Roman Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, had been celebrating the return of the sun around the time of the Winter Solstice. This made the assimilation of non-Christian beliefs easier.
As a result there is some leeway in the Christian liturgical calendar. The timeline below follows the Roman Catholic calendar, but even among Catholic churches there is variation. I added some event outside the Season but related to Christmas, as well as, within brackets, Feasts within the Season but unrelated to Christmas.
- 25 March, 9 months before Christmas: Feast of the Annunciation.
- 3 December: Season of Advent begins.
- 18 December: Feast of the Expectation of Our Lady.
- 23 December: midnight: Season of Advent ends.
- 24 December: Season of Christmas begins. Christmas Eve.
- 25 December: Feast of the Nativity of Christ (HDO = Holy Day of Obligation)
12 Days or “Octave” of Christmas or Christmastide (26 December till January 6):
- (26 December: Feast of St. Stephen, a.k.a. "Boxing Day”)
- (27 December: Feast of St. John the Evangelist)
- 28 December: Feast of the Massacre of the Innocents and Flight to Egypt.
- 31 December: Feast of the Holy Family.
- 1 January, 2007: Feast of the Circumcision of Christ and Feast of Mary Mother of God. (HDO)
- 3 January: Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
- 6 January: Feast of the Epiphany. Last of the “12 Days of Christmas”, called “Little Christmas” or the “Twelfth Day”, its eve the “Twelfth Night” (HDO).
- 8 January: Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (which happened later in his life) concludes the Season.
- 9 January: beginning of “Ordinary Time”.
- 2 February: Feast of the Presentation of Christ at the Temple or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, also called Candlemas.
