Christmas Day worldwide - open presents December 245h, 25th, or in January?

Santa Claus is calling? When?

In the UK we used to say Father Christmas.

 In England, Christmas presents are opened on Christmas Day, December 25th. According to the Gregorian calendar. A neat number, although the day of the week varies. In 2025 Christmas Day is on a Thursday. 

German Christmas Traditions

The Germans open their presents on Christmas Eve. The British royal family stick to this tradition, which came from Queen Victoria's husband Albert.

But does Christmas eve start at sunset the day before?

Sunset Evening

Starting the next day at sunset is the way that it would have been for Jews at the time of Jesus, and how Orthodox Jews today still start and end the Sabbath.

But when does the next day start? According to modern thinking, at midnight. 

Midnight Mass - Europe and Roman Catholic

Another European tradition in Catholic countries and Cathedrals is Midnight mass. We went to Midnight mass one year in Prague. Midnight of course is the start of the next day.

When we went to live in Singapore, Christmas ended at midnight on December 25th. No Boxing Day.

Angela Lansbury happily holding the Singapore flag. Photo by Trevor Sharot. Taken in August, on Singapore National Day, circa 2022.

Christmas in Singapore and Asia

I had a Christmas message from Singapore from my friend Jaya, who is Indian with a Chinese wife. He called me at 9 am UK time which was 5 p.m. in Singapore. He told me that he is going to work on Boxing day which is a normal working day for him. His wife is a teacher in a European school so for her Christmas is a long holiday, extending over New Year, January 1st.

The Chinese who are the majority in Singapore will be having their big New Year celebration at the time of the Chinese New year, which other Asian countries call the lunar New Year, which varies according to the lunar calendar.

When I was a teenager my parents could avoid giving Christmas presents and the inconvenience of no public transport on Christmas Day by going for a beach holiday to Spain to enjoy warmer weather.

Those who want to celebrate twice could stay in the UK for a British Christmas, then hop across to Europe to a country where Christmas is celebrated on January 6th, known in England as 12th night, celebrated in the Christmas carol, the twelve days of Christmas. 

We are still sending or giving Xmas cards in the uk. Although whatsApp messages and gifs aee taking over.

Jif forwarded to me by an Indian friend in London.

What about the USA?

USA

American flag. Picture from Wikipedia.

The Americans say Happy Holidays, which covers Christmas and New Year, those who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday as well as those who don't.

In restaurants and malls in the UK and other countries you hear English language carols, as well as the bilingual song, in Spanish and English, Feliz Navidad. Easy to recognize, like the words felicity, happiness, and nativity, birth, as well as to remember as the song keeps repeating the refrain.

So, to everybody, everywhere, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. and Happy Holidays.

Useful Website On Christmas and The Birth Of Jesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_the_birth_of_Jesus#:~:text=Based%20on%20this%20winter%20solstice,held%20on%20the%20same%20date.

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NEW Year - Jewish, explained and illustrated

 We just had the two days of The Jewish New Year. The story is in Leviticus 23.24. The Feast of Trumpets. The ram's horn is blown in the synagogue on New Year;s Day. (This takes a lot of puff.) 

In my greetings card box I found old greeting cards for Jewish festivities. Nowadays people send greetings through animated cards and whatsapp but the old printed cards reminded me from the pictures that features of the festival include eating honey and apples.

Looking out of my window in London I see apples on trees in back gardens. The Jewish new year is a lunar new year like the Asian, Chinese,  and Muslim new years. So is Sukkot, the upcoming harvest festival celebrated in Christian churches in England as well as the assembly of Christian Cof E (Church of England) state school, which Americans call public schools. 

School Year

Jewish New Year starting in autumn may seem odd, until you reflect that school and universities follow the same traditional timing.

I remember from living in the USA that in the UK public schools are what Americans call private schools.  What the Americans call public schools, are what we in the UK used to call Council schools because the County council funds them from council tax. 

Jewish New Year's Eve Dinner

The evening before in Hebrew is called Erev. Easy to remember. Eve for evening like New Year's Eve on Dec 31st, and Erev.

I was invited to a Jewish New Year evening dinner on the evening before the second day of Rosh Hashana. Like Christmas eve, Jewish holidays start the night before. (Friday night is the start of the sabbath, varying in time according to the time of darkness when you can see three stars. No need to squint at the sky. A Jewish diary or calendar or newspaper tells you what time the sabbath or festival starts.

Two Night and Two Day Festivals in the Diaspora

The diaspora is the dispersal. (The Irish and others also use the word diaspora, and living beyond the pale, meaning boundary.)

In the UK two nights are celebrated. That is because of the time difference. The UK is not the same time as Jerusalem and Israel, so to be sure to cover every hour of the holiday, two days are celebrated. In Israel, they only celebrate for one day. Often the mother or grandmother or oldest sister cooks and invites the family for the first day. Sometimes a sister or daughter will hold the festive meal at her home on the second day, often using leftover food, and table decorations, candle sticks, flowers, table naplins, plates, borrowing whatever is needed, or pretty, or appropriate. Most religious people celebrate on two days. Non religious people, friends, distant relatives might be invited on the second day. I was invited on the secnd day (night before the second day which this week, this year, was Tuesday night.

Here are some pretty pictures for your entertainment. 

Flower display. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

 Apple and head covering for a man. Paper napkin showing in gold foil the ram's horn. A plastic dipper for honey symbolising sweetness to spread on the apple. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

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Chollah bread. Honey in bowl. With one large wooden honey dipper. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Honey in bowl. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Chocolate wrapped in foil. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Kosher chocolate

It doesn't have to be kosher chocolate. Ideally parve, chocolate designated as vegan, which contains neither milk nor meat, and can be served with either kind of meal.

A milk chocolate could be served with a milk meal containing no meat or meat products, not chicken, only fish. 

The real harvest festival is coming up soon, Sukkot, when households and synagogues build a sukkah, tempeorary hut with a view of the sky, (resembling the booths for guardians of the harvest, built out in Indian fields), decorated with hanging fruit 

Useful Dates

Yom Kippur 2025 Evening of October 1st to sundown on October 2nd.

Sukkot

Evening of Monday 6th October to 1th October in 2025.

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Auschwitz Liberation and so called fake photos

On Jan 27, the liberation of Auschwitz, in Poland, liberated by the Russians, is commemorated. Were the photos of Auschwitz 'fake'. I believe they were the real people, in the real place, taken later. Like wedding photos taken a day later.  They are not 'fake'. The people and clothes and event were real.

In January the camp was filled with snow, says Anne Frank's childhood friend, and posthumous stepsister, Eva.

Fake? That's too strong a word. But this isn't new knowledge as far as I am concerned. When I visited Auschwitz, on the coach we were shown a film and stills. Our multilingual guide told us (the English translation being less detailed and clear than the Polish and German) that during liberation, the surviving children were weak, some too sick to stand, and distressed, and distressing to look at, unable to stand in an orderly group for photos.

The children spent several weeks or months, at first in recovery centres, and with families. Some did not recover for years, if ever. They were too scared to go out in the light, or go into a street with people in uniforms and dogs.

When enough children were physically and mentally healthier, able to travel, fatter and fitter, as shown in these photo, they were taken back to the camp, dressed in the camp uniforms, to be photographed as a group.

Child survivors of Auschwitz, not on the snowy day of Liberation, but, after being taken by their Russian liberators to recuperate, were returned to put their prison clothes on again for a reunion photo commemorating their liberation.

I took this well known photo from Wikipedia.

This was so the Russians could have a record of the people and the place, and the fact that the Russians had liberated it.

So the photos are of children liberated, but not on the day of liberation. The dates are not what you think, if you think that photo of children was taken on the day of liberation.

My understanding is that it was a later re-enactment or reunion celebrating and recording their release.

As for identifying people and place - everything was chaotic. I have enough trouble trying to identify my family photos taken any time earlier than last week. And those old photos from the fifties and forties.

It has taken years of research to date photos, verify the places they were taken, and the people. The archives have lots of real time photos which were not released postwar, because they show the dead and dying. At first some photos and films were released, but it was quickly found that relatives would go to the cinema and see the dead bodies of family members.

This was not only distressing for the relatives who burst into tears, or fainted or screamed, but also caused chaos and upset to everybody in the cinema. Many of the photos are still not released because they are too distressing for people still alive today and their descendants, more so even than for people in general.

On Facebook, my friend Georgia, from Harrow and Harrow Writers, said she was skeptical about articles from the Mail because years ago their attitude was ....

Useful Websites
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7933509/Anne-Franks-step-sister-claims-photos-showing-liberation-Auschwitz-FAKE.html
Poland
https://www.pot.gov.pl/en/information-about-the-polish-tourism-organisation/polish-tourism-organisation-international-offices
https://poland.pl/tourism/
Krakow
https://www.visitacity.com/en/krakow
https://www.muzeumkrakowa.pl/branches/oskar-schindlers-factory
Auschwitz
https://www.viator.com/Krakow-tourism/d Anne Frank
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/CAICnOLtC0lDLg?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_victims_and_survivors_of_Auschwitz

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.