Christmas
25 December — a gazetted holiday across India, and the principal festival of its Christian communities.
Where it is kept Kerala, Goa, Tamil Nadu, the north-east — Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya — and Mumbai; a public holiday nationwide.
When it falls
A fixed Gregorian date. It does not move.
Overview
Christmas is a gazetted holiday in India and is kept as Bada Din, the big day, well beyond the Christian population. The midnight mass, the star hung outside the house, and the crib are the common forms across the Indian churches.
The regional traditions are old and distinct. Kerala's Saint Thomas Christians trace their community to the first century and keep a Syriac liturgical tradition. Goa's is Portuguese-derived, with the consoada meal and the kuswar sweets. Nagaland and Mizoram, overwhelmingly Christian, keep it as the year's principal festival with choir competitions and community feasts.
Where it comes from
Christianity in India is older than in most of Europe. The Saint Thomas tradition places the apostle's arrival at Muziris in Kerala in 52 CE; whatever weight one gives that, an organised Christian community in Kerala is attested well before the fourth century, and the Cochin and Malabar churches were in communion with the Church of the East for centuries before any European arrival.
The Portuguese in Goa from 1510 and the later Protestant missions produced the other major strands. The north-eastern churches are the result of Welsh and American Baptist missions from the nineteenth century, and are now among the most heavily Christian regions in Asia.
Why it matters
For the Indian Christian communities it is the central festival of the year, and for Kerala and the north-east it is a public event on the scale of Onam or Bihu.
The Indian Christian population is around 2.3 per cent by the 2011 Census — some twenty-eight million people, which is a larger community than the population of most countries.
How to celebrate
- Attend the midnight mass or the morning service if you keep the dayThe liturgy is the observance.
- Hang the star and set up the cribThe star outside the house is the Indian Christmas marker, more than the tree.
- Share the sweets — kuswar in Goa, achappam and kalkals in KeralaThe exchange between neighbours is the social form of the day, and crosses religious lines routinely.
What to avoid
These are not all the same kind of thing. Some are prohibitions from a named text, some are Indian law, some are practical, and some are a confusion worth not repeating. Each item says which it is.
- Do not assume every Indian church keeps the same riteSyro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Latin Catholic, Orthodox, CSI, CNI and Baptist traditions all differ in liturgy and in calendar.
- Do not expect alcohol everywhereSeveral states have dry days or local restrictions around 25 December.
Where this comes from
Everything above is either computed by this site’s own panchang engine, or drawn from the works listed here. Where a custom is modern, commercial or contested, the page says so rather than presenting it as ancient.
- Government of India gazetted holiday list, 25 December.
- The Saint Thomas Christian tradition of Kerala, with the arrival at Muziris traditionally dated 52 CE.
- Census of India 2011, for the Christian population figure of 2.3 per cent.
Dates are computed for the place named above and will differ elsewhere. Regional traditions vary; where two reckonings are in use, both are named rather than one being chosen silently.
Other festivals
All festivals, with dates for any year · The calendar on the home page