How Christmas is Celebrated in Canada

There’s nothing like a whole lot of snow to help get into the spirit of Christmas. Canada is the perfect country to enjoy Christmas, where a beautiful and festive backdrop of snow covers 65% of the country, for 6 months of the year.

During Christmas time, people in Canada travel far and wide to spend the holidays feasting with their loved ones. Canadians have a pastime of decorating their homes and yards with lights and Christmas-themed decorations. Entire streets or neighbourhoods coordinate to go all-out on decorating, together creating a twinkling, mystical winter wonderland for city-goers to enjoy.

Did we mention eggnog?

Keep reading to learn all about how Christmas is celebrated in Canada.

Festive Christmas Dates in Canada

While Christmas itself falls on December 25th, the days before and after are significant for Canadians.

• Christmas Eve - Often families will have large gatherings and feasts on Christmas Eve, in order to be fully relaxed all day on Christmas day. There is a special feeling of anticipation for children, and it is a pastime for kids to open one gift on Christmas Eve.

• Christmas Day - Christmas day is a time for exchanging gifts, enjoying decadent breakfasts, playing in the snow, and relaxation and connection for the whole family. Feasting also happens on this day, where elaborate dinners and festive desserts are served along with rum and eggnog.

• Boxing Day - Boxing Day is a consumer holiday in Canada and the USA, where stores offer products at a very high discount. People sometimes camp out (despite the cold!) and stand in line for hours in order to purchase discounted items.

Festive Christmas Foods in Canada

Canadians eat similar meals as Americans and Brits during Christmas, and the traditional Christmas meal is similar to that of Thanksgiving Day. Dessert is taken very seriously in Canada, as you can see the dessert items outnumber the dinner items!

Dinner

• Roasted Turkey

• Stuffing - Stuffing is a favourite dish at both Christmas and Thanksgiving. It's a crumbly, savory preparation that is made with cubed bread, herbs, and vegetables like onions and celery, moistened with broth and baked in the oven. The bread helps make it fluffy. Butter and fresh or dried herbs can be added for flavour, and some people like to add sausage, nuts, or dried fruit for extra depth. Traditionally it’s cooked inside a turkey, and can also be prepared in a casserole dish for more volume.

• Mashed potatoes

• Cranberry sauce

• Gravy

• Roast beef

• Ham

• Baked salmon - Canadians on the coasts of Canada often serve seafood with their Christmas meal.

• Roasted vegetables

• Tourtière - A traditional Quebecois double-crusted spiced meat pie.

• Brussels sprouts

Dessert

• Butter tarts - A Canadian classic, butter tarts are pies filled with raisins, pecans, spices, butter and sugar.

• Nanaimo bars - Originally created in the city of Nanaimo, BC, these layered bars have a crust, a custard-like filling, and a layer of hard chocolate on top.

• Christmas pudding - Christmas pudding is a British dessert made with dried fruit, spices, and other ingredients, often served with brandy sauce.

• Shortbread cookies - Basically sugar cookies loaded with butter. These cookies will melt in your mouth.

• Mincemeat pie - A sweet English pie filled with dried fruits, warming spices, sugar, nuts, distilled spirits, and, traditionally, mutton or beef suet. Modern recipes often choose to leave out the meat.

• Fruitcake - You either like it or you hate it, or you just make fun of it every December. Fruitcake is a dense sweetbread that is mostly made out of candied fruit, invented by the Brits.

• Panettone - A popular yeast cake originating in Italy.

• Yule log - A sponge cake in the shape of a log, to honor Yuletide (see below).

• Chocolates

• Peppermint bark - Chocolate flavoured with peppermint, sometimes made with nuts, hard caramel, or coconut as well. The chocolate is set to cool on a baking sheet and broken off into chunks of “bark”.

• Gingerbread - A stiff, cookie-like bread used to make human-shaped gingerbread cookies, and baked into slabs to make gingerbread houses.

• Pumpkin pie

• Trifle - A layered dessert from England that consists of sponge cake, fruit, custard, jelly and whipped cream. Sometimes the sponge cake is soaked in sherry.

• Candy canes

• Maple syrup desserts

Christmas Rituals and Traditions in Canada

Several Christmas activities, traditions, and customs are unique to Canada. These pastimes include:

• Letters to Santa Claus - Children write wish lists to Santa and send them in the mail. Canada Post has a dedicated program to respond to each kid. Postal code: HOH OHO

• Taffy on Snow (Tire sur la Neige) - A tradition from Quebec where hot maple syrup is poured onto snow to make a chewy candy.

• Lobster or Salmon Feasts - Communities in coastal regions like the Maritimes or B.C. often serve seafood as part of their holiday meals.

• Christmas Light Festivals - Cities across Canada host festive light displays.

• CBC Broadcast of “The Shepherd” - Every Christmas Eve, CBC radio features a reading of this classic short story by Frederick Forsyth

• Secret Santa Gift Exchange - This is a North American pastime that generally happens at staff parties or within friend groups. Everyone brings a gift and names are drawn so that a random gift is given to each participant.

No matter how cold it gets (within reason), Canadians go outside all year. Outdoor Christmas activities in Canada include:

• Building snow people who are adorned with coal eyes, a carrot nose and a corncob pipe. Sometimes a red scarf is added.

• Sledding

• Hockey

• Snow shoeing

• Decorating outdoor trees with garlands made from popped corn and cranberries

• Making pine cones dipped in syrup and peanut butter, and covered in seeds. These are then hung from trees for the birds to enjoy.

• Municipal Christmas parades

• Door-to-door Christmas carolling

Christmas in Canada, Across Cultures

Various cultures have contributed their traditions to make up Canada’s unique Christmas practices:

European Pagan - Europe’s pre-Christian Indigenous groups celebrated what is known as Yule, marked by the shortest day of the year, Winter Solstice. Pagans celebrate the return of the sun, while Christians celebrate the return of the Son (Jesus). Early Christians created Christmas based on this pagan holiday.

French - French Canadian regions of Canada hold a midnight feast after Christmas Eve Mass, known as “Réveillon”. The name comes from the French word “reveil” (to wake) , because participants stay up all night until the meal and celebrations are finished in the morning.

German - The widespread traditions of Christmas trees and wreaths come from German culture.

British - The Brits also decorate Christmas trees, as well as exchanging gifts and watching Christmas specials on TV.

The Santa Claus Legend

What would Christmas in North America be without jolly St. Nick?

Santa Claus, a.k.a. Saint Nick, Father Christmas or Kris Kringle, is a legendary figure in western countries, who delivers gifts to Children during the night before Christmas. He is said to have a workshop in the north pole where elves help manufacture gifts and reindeer pull his delivery sleigh.

The myth of Santa comes from Saint Nicholas, who was a 4th century bishop known for his generosity and secret gift-giving.

Santa is most often depicted as a cheerful, round, white-bearded man with glasses. He wears a red suit lined with white fur, black boots, and a wide black belt, and carries a large fabric sack of gifts. He says “ho, ho, ho” when he laughs.

This contemporary version of Santa started in 19th-century North America, after Dutch settlers brought the story of SinterKlaas (St. Nicholas). He is globally famous because he is featured in thousands of songs, books, movies, TV shows and ads.

Christmas Music and Entertainment in Canada

There are endless songs about Christmas. These songs have traditions surrounding them such as door-to door caroling, where groups of singers walk around the neighbourhood and knock on doors to surprise the residents with a cheerful, candlelit carol.

Business and department stores across North America start playing Christmas songs and displaying decorations right after Halloween.

During December, special Christmas concerts, choirs, dance performances and theatre productions offer festive entertainment. Christmas craft markets are numerous, with many artisans and food producers relying on these markets for a significant portion of their annual income.

Fun Facts About Christmas in Canada

• Every year since 1971, Nova Scotia sends a giant Christmas tree to Boston as a thank-you for their help during the 1917 Halifax Explosion.

• The Canadian Prairies are full of Ukrainian settlers, who celebrate Ukrainian Christmas in January.

• The largest Christmas parade in the world started in 1905 and is held in Toronto.

• Mummering is a Newfoundland/Labrador tradition where people dress in disguises and visit their neighbours with songs and dancing. Hosts try to guess who is under the costume. Sometimes an entire Mummers parade is held.

• Victoria, BC hosts a National Gingerbread Competition every December.

• Canadians consume around 6 million litres of eggnog every December, and that doesn’t include homemade eggnog.