Christmas in the United States

How Americans celebrate Christmas

The American Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, held since 1924, traditionally ends with Santa Claus, and Black Friday opens the shopping season. Through December, homes are strung with lights and inflatable figures, towns hold tree lightings and parades, and offices and neighbours host holiday parties.

Most families put up a real or artificial tree, hang stockings by the fireplace and send Christmas cards. Letters to Santa still pour in; the US Postal Service has answered them through Operation Santa since 1912, and since 1955 NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has "tracked" Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve after a newspaper advertisement misprinted its phone number. Santa is said to arrive down the chimney on the night of 24 December, where cookies and milk are left out for him.

On Christmas Eve many attend candlelight services or midnight Mass; Pew found about half of Americans plan to go to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Christmas morning is for opening presents, followed by a large afternoon or evening dinner with family. Newer customs include the Elf on the Shelf, ugly Christmas sweater parties, holiday films on television and, for many, a Christmas Day movie at the cinema.

A short history of Christmas in America

Christmas was not always welcome in America. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned its celebration from 1659 to 1681, and in much of New England it remained an ordinary working day well into the 1800s. The South and the Mid-Atlantic, settled by Anglicans, Catholics, Moravians and German Lutherans, kept the feast. Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday in 1836, and President Ulysses S. Grant made it a federal holiday in 1870.

The modern American Christmas took shape in the 19th century. The 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the Night Before Christmas") gave Santa his sleigh and eight reindeer, and Thomas Nast's illustrations in Harper's Weekly from 1863 fixed his image as a round, bearded figure living at the North Pole. In 1882 Edward H. Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison, lit the first Christmas tree with electric bulbs in New York. President Calvin Coolidge lit the first National Christmas Tree in 1923, and the Rockefeller Center tree became an official tradition in 1933.

Christmas traditions across the United States, region by region

The table gives a quick overview; each region is described in more detail below.

New York City and the Northeast

New York is the stage for America's best-known Christmas images. The giant Norway spruce at Rockefeller Center is lit in a televised ceremony shortly after Thanksgiving, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes has run since 1933, department-store windows on Fifth Avenue draw crowds, and the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Dyker Heights is famous for its over-the-top house lights. In Boston, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has sent a tree every year since 1971 to thank the city for its help after the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Across rural New England and upstate New York, Christmas means cut-your-own tree farms, snowy village greens and candlelit inns.

Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic and Washington, DC

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was named on Christmas Eve 1741 by Moravian settlers and has called itself "Christmas City USA" since 1937. Its Moravian heritage shows in the many-pointed Moravian star, candles in every window and the putz, an elaborate miniature Nativity landscape. Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, the fur-clad Belsnickel once visited homes before Christmas, rewarding the good and scolding the lazy. Philadelphia hosts a German-style Christmas Village and greets the New Year with the Mummers Parade on 1 January.

In Washington, DC, the President lights the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse each December, a tradition since 1923, while the US Capitol Christmas Tree is brought each year from a different national forest. The White House is decorated in a new theme every season.

The South and Appalachia

Southern Christmas mixes church, family and generous tables: baked ham, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, pecan pie and ambrosia. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Moravian community of Old Salem holds candlelit lovefeasts of sweet buns and coffee, and bakes paper-thin Moravian ginger cookies and sugar cake. Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, opens the season with its Grand Illumination of candles and fireworks, and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville decorates its mansion in Gilded Age style. In parts of Appalachia, older families still mark Old Christmas on 6 January, a memory of the date under the Julian calendar before Britain and its colonies changed calendars in 1752.

Louisiana: bonfires on the levee

South Louisiana has one of the country's most distinctive customs. On Christmas Eve, more than a hundred tall wooden pyramids are set alight along the Mississippi River levees between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, with the greatest concentration in St. James Parish around Gramercy, Lutcher and Paulina. Local tradition says the fires light the way for Papa Noël, the Cajun Santa Claus, as he travels the river; another story says they once lit the way to midnight Mass. The Festival of the Bonfires in Lutcher in early December previews the event. In New Orleans, restaurants serve special réveillon menus, reviving the Creole Christmas Eve feast after midnight Mass.

Texas, New Mexico and the Southwest

Spanish and Mexican roots shape Christmas across the Southwest. In San Antonio, Las Posadas processions re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for shelter along the River Walk, and families across Texas gather for tamaladas, tamale-making parties. In New Mexico, paper-bag lanterns weighted with sand line adobe walls and rooftops; they are called farolitos in Santa Fe and northern New Mexico and luminarias in much of the south, where the northern word means small bonfires. Santa Fe's Canyon Road farolito walk on Christmas Eve is the state's signature event, and the anise-flavoured biscochito is New Mexico's official state cookie. Ask for both red and green chile on your plate and you order it "Christmas". In Chandler, Arizona, a 30-foot Christmas tree built from hundreds of tumbleweeds and painted white has stood downtown every year since 1957.

The Midwest

German and Scandinavian settlers left a lasting mark on the Midwest. Chicago's Christkindlmarket, modelled on Nuremberg's, has run since 1996, and many towns hold similar markets. Frankenmuth, Michigan, a Bavarian-style town, is home to Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland, billed as the world's largest Christmas store and open all year. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, Scandinavian-American families serve lutefisk (lye-cured cod) and lefse (soft potato flatbread) at Christmas, and Lutheran churches hold lutefisk dinners through the season. Snow, sledding and frozen lakes make the Midwest the setting many Americans picture when they think of a "white Christmas".

The Mountain West and Pacific Northwest

In Salt Lake City, the lights of Temple Square are among the West's best-known displays. In the Pacific Northwest, Seattle's Christmas Ship Festival has sailed since 1949, with choirs singing from a lighted boat to waterfront communities around Puget Sound. Leavenworth, Washington, a Bavarian-themed mountain village, holds a Christmas lighting festival on weekends through December. Oregon is the country's largest Christmas tree producer, and noble and Douglas firs from the region are shipped nationwide.

California

California celebrates in mild weather. The Hollywood Christmas Parade, which began in 1928 as the Santa Claus Lane Parade, brings celebrities down Hollywood Boulevard after Thanksgiving. Lighted boat parades are a coastal speciality: the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade traces its roots to an illuminated boat parade in 1908, and today well over a hundred decorated vessels sail the harbour each December. Tamales and Mexican Christmas traditions are as central here as in Texas.

Alaska

In the town of North Pole, near Fairbanks, streets are named for Christmas themes and the Santa Claus House shop receives letters from around the world. In Alaska Native communities of the Russian Orthodox faith, Christmas falls on 7 January and is celebrated with Starring, or Selaviq: carollers follow a large, decorated spinning star from house to house. Read more in our guide to Christmas in Alaska.

Hawaii

Hawaii's greeting is Mele Kalikimaka, a Hawaiian rendering of "Merry Christmas" popularised worldwide by Bing Crosby's 1950 recording. Since 1985, Honolulu City Lights has decorated Honolulu Hale (City Hall) every December, where the 21-foot Shaka Santa, bare-chested and dipping his feet in a fountain, sits beside Tutu Mele. Palm trees are wrapped in lights, hotels and malls host Santas in aloha shirts, and Christmas dinner may include kalua pig alongside the turkey.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico, a US territory, has one of the longest Christmas seasons anywhere, running from late November until the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián in San Juan in mid-January. Friends gather for parrandas, surprise late-night visits with music on guitar, cuatro and güiro. The feast centres on lechón asado (roast pork), pasteles and arroz con gandules, washed down with coquito, a coconut eggnog. On the eve of Three Kings' Day, 6 January, boxes of grass are left out for the Kings' camels.

Traditional American Christmas food

There is no single American Christmas dinner, but roast turkey or glazed ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing or dressing, cranberry sauce and pies are the most common. Many families bake trays of Christmas cookies and build gingerbread houses in the weeks before.

Christmas in a nation of many traditions

Immigrant communities keep their own customs alongside the American ones. Mexican-American families hold posadas and gather for tamales; Filipino-Americans attend Simbang Gabi, nine dawn or evening Masses from 16 to 24 December; Polish-Americans share the Wigilia supper; and Italian-Americans serve the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Many Jewish Americans celebrate Hanukkah, which falls in December in most years, and a well-known custom on 25 December is dinner at a Chinese restaurant and a trip to the cinema. Kwanzaa, created in 1966 to celebrate African American heritage, runs from 26 December to 1 January. This variety is why "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" sit alongside "Merry Christmas" in American greetings.

US Christmas season dates 2026

Christmas in the United States: frequently asked questions

Christmas in nearby countries