❅❄️🎄✨CHRISTMAS✨🎄❄️❅

(it is a ‘culturally significant celebration’ for most of the ‘western world’ and is widely observed as a ‘full’ or ‘partial’ holiday in anticipation of ‘christmas’)

(but this date is not known to be ‘jesus’ actual birthday, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly 9 months after some ‘early christians’ believed ‘jesus’ had been ‘conceived’, a ‘historical roman festival’, or the date of the ‘northern hemisphere’s winter solstice’)

(“christmas” is central to the ‘christmas’ (/ ‘holiday’) season, and in ‘christianity’ marks the beginning of the larger season of ‘christmastide’, which lasts ’12 days’)

(although traditionally a ‘christian holiday’, christmas is also widely celebrated by many ‘non-christians’, and some of its ‘popular celebratory customs’ have ‘pre-christian’ (or ‘secular’) ‘themes’ + ‘origins’)

(popular modern customs of the holiday include…)

‘gift-giving’

‘music’

*an exchange of ‘greeting cards’*

‘church celebrations’

*a ‘special meal’*

(…and display of various ‘decorations’, including…)

‘christmas trees’

‘lights’

‘garlands’

‘mistle-toe’

‘nativity scenes’

‘holly’

(in addition, “father christmas” (known as ‘santa claus’ in some areas, including (‘north america’ / ‘australia’ / ‘ireland’) is a ‘popular mythological figure’ in many countries, associated with the bringing of gifts for ‘children’)

(because ‘gift-giving’ + many other aspects of the ‘christmas festival’ involve ‘heightened economic activity’ among both ‘christians’ + ‘non-christians’, the ‘holiday’ has become a ‘significant event’ + a ‘key sales period’ for ‘retailers’ + ‘businesses’)

(the ‘economic impact’ of ‘christmas’ is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world)

**SKETCHES**