Xmas holiday In the United States, the holiday season "is generally considered to begin with the day after Thanksgiving and end after New Year's Day". According to Axelrad, the season in the United States encompasses at least Christmas and New Year's Day, and also includes Saint Nicholas Day. The U.S. Fire Administration[23] defines the "winter holiday season" as the period from December 1 to January 7. According to Chen et al.,[24] in China, the Christmas and holiday season "is generally considered to begin with the winter solstice and end after the Lantern Festival". In some stores and shopping malls, Christmas merchandise is advertised beginning after Halloween or even earlier in late October, alongside Halloween items. In the UK and Ireland, Christmas food generally appears on supermarket shelves as early as September or even August, while the Christmas shopping season itself starts from mid-November, when the high street Christmas lights are switched on.[25][26]
Secular icons and symbols, such as Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman, are on display in addition to Christian displays of the nativity. Public holiday celebrations and observances similarly range from midnight mass to Christmas tree lighting ceremonies, church services, decorations, traditions, festivals, outdoor markets, feasts, social gatherings and the singing of carols.
The precise definition of feasts and festival days that are encompassed by the Christmas and holiday season has become controversial in the United States over recent decades. While in other countries the only Xmas holiday included in the "season" are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, St. Stephen's Day/Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and Epiphany, in recent times, this term in the U.S. began to expand to include Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.[27] The expansion of the holiday season in the U.S. to encompass Thanksgiving is believed to have begun in the 1920s, when in major department stores Macy's and Gimbels launched competing Thanksgiving Day parades to promote Christmas sales.[28] Due to the phenomenon of Christmas creep and the informal inclusion of Thanksgiving, the Christmas and holiday season has begun to extend earlier into the year, overlapping Veterans/Remembrance/Armistice Day, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night.
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