Christmas tree in the context of "Christmas card"

The observance of Christmas around the world varies by country and by religion. The day of Christmas, and in some cases the day before and the day after, are recognized by many national governments and cultures worldwide, including in areas where Christianity is a minority religion which are usually found in Africa and Asia. In some non-Christian areas, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday.

Christmas traditions for many nations include the installing and lighting of Christmas trees, the hanging of Advent wreaths, Christmas stockings, candy canes, setting out cookies and milk, the creation of Nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus Christ and giving gifts to others. Christmas carols may be sung and stories told about such figures as the Baby Jesus, Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Christkind or Grandfather Frost. The sending and exchange of Christmas card greetings, observance of fasting and special religious observances such as a midnight Mass or Vespers on Christmas Eve, the burning of a Yule log, and the giving and receiving of presents are also common practice. Along with Easter, Christmas is one of the most important periods on the Christian calendar, and is often closely connected to other holidays at this time of year, such as Advent, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Nicholas Day, Saint Stephen's Day, New Year's, and the Feast of the Epiphany.

Christmastide, also known as Christide, is a season of the liturgical year in most Christian churches.

For the Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, Anglican Church, Methodist Church and some Orthodox Churches, Christmastide begins on 24 December at sunset or Vespers, which is liturgicus the beginning of Christmas Day. Most of 24 December is thus not part of Christmastide, but of Advent, the season in the Church Year that precedes Christmastide. In many liturgical calendars Christmastide is followed by the closely related season of Epiphanytide that commences at sunset on 5 January—a date known as Twelfth Night.

The Christmas season or the festive season, also known as the holiday season or the holidays, is an annual period generally spanning from November or December to early January incorporating Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The gift-giving associated with the season creates a peak season for the retail sector extending to the end of the period ("January sales"). Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies are customary traditions in various locales.

In Western Christianity, the Christmas season is traditionally synonymous with Christmastide, which runs from December 25 (Christmas Day) to January 5 (Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve), popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas. Christmas in Italy is one of the country's major holidays and begins on 8 December, with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the day on which traditionally the Christmas tree is mounted and ends on 6 January, of the following year with the Epiphany. As the economic impact involving the anticipatory lead-up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Christmas season" began to also encompass the liturgical Advent season, the period of preparation observed in Western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until the night of Christmas Eve. The term "Advent calendar" continues to be widely known in Western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December.

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story or a Christian allegory.

A Christmas gift or Christmas present is a gift given in celebration of Christmas. Christmas gifts are often exchanged on Christmas Eve (December 24), Christmas Day itself (December 25) or on the last day of the twelve-day Christmas season, Twelfth Night (January 5). The practice of giving gifts during Christmastide, according to Christian tradition, is symbolic of the presentation of the gifts by the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus.

General Grant Grove, a section of the greater Kings Canyon National Park, was established by the U.S. Congress in 1890 and is located in Fresno County, California. The primary attraction of General Grant Grove is the giant sequoia trees that populate the grove. General Grant Grove's best-known tree is called General Grant, which is 267 ft (81 m) tall and the third-largest known tree in the world. The General Grant tree is over 1,500 years old and is known as the United States' national Christmas tree. General Grant Grove consists of 154 acres (0.62 km) and is geographically isolated from the rest of Kings Canyon National Park.

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, romanized: Shchelkunchik, pronounced [ɕːɪɫˈkunʲt͡ɕɪk] ), Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a ballet-féerie; Russian: балет-феерия, romanized: balet-feyeriya) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. The plot is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's 1844 short story The Nutcracker, itself a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years.

Since the late 1960s, The Nutcracker has been danced by many ballet companies, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of the ballet. Its score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story.

Picea abies, the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.

It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the longest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very closely related to the Siberian spruce (Picea obovata), which replaces it east of the Ural Mountains, and with which it hybridises freely. The Norway spruce has a wide distribution for it being planted for its wood, and is the species used as the main Christmas tree in several countries around the world. It was the first gymnosperm to have its genome sequenced. The Latin specific epithet abies means "like Abies, Fir tree".

Christmas ornaments, baubles, globes, "Christmas bulbs", or "Christmas bubbles" are decoration items, usually to decorate Christmas trees. These decorations may be woven, blown (glass or plastic), molded (ceramic or metal), carved from wood or expanded polystyrene, or made by other techniques.

Ornaments are available in a variety of geometric shapes and image depictions. Ornaments are almost always reused year after year rather than purchased annually, and family collections often contain a combination of commercially produced ornaments and decorations created by family members. Such collections are often passed on and augmented from generation to generation. Festive figures and images are commonly preferred.

A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation, or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term tree farm also is used to refer to tree nurseries and Christmas tree farms. Plantation forestry can produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities (for example, the Forestry Commission in Britain) and/or the paper and wood industries and other private landowners (such as Weyerhaeuser, Rayonier, and Sierra Pacific Industries in the United States or Asia Pulp & Paper in Indonesia). Christmas trees are often grown on plantations, and in southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have replaced the natural forest.

Industrial plantations are actively managed for the commercial production of forest products. Industrial plantations are usually large-scale. Individual blocks are usually even-aged and often consist of just one or two species. These species can be exotic or indigenous. The plants used for the plantation are often genetically altered for desired traits such as growth and resistance to pests and diseases in general and specific traits, for example in the case of timber species, volumic wood production and stem straightness. Forest genetic resources are the basis for genetic alteration. Selected individuals grown in seed orchards are a good source for seeds to develop adequate planting material.