Traditions facts
Where our customs come from. Every fact links to its source, checked 30 Oct 2026. Where sources disagree, we show both.
Where Christmas comes from
- The word Christmas means “Christ’s mass”. It comes from the Middle English Christemasse, which came from the Old English Cristes mæsse. [source]
- The older word Yule may come from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, words for the midwinter feast. [source]
- Navidad (Spanish), Natale (Italian) and Noël (French) all probably mean “nativity”. The German Weihnachten means “hallowed night”. [source]
- The church in Rome began formally celebrating Christmas on 25 December in 336, in the reign of the emperor Constantine. [source]
- The Roman winter festival of Saturnalia was first held on 17 December, and later stretched to seven days. [source]
- Eastern Orthodox churches that still use the old Julian calendar keep Christmas on the day that is 7 January in our calendar. [source]
Christmas in the Isle of Man
- Culture Vannin calls the Oie’ll Verree on Christmas Eve perhaps the key event in the traditional Manx song year. [source]
- Oie’l Verrey (also spelt Oie’ll Verree) means the Eve of the Feast of Mary: Christmas Eve. After the evening service, the parish clerk and congregation stayed in church to sing carvals, carols in Manx Gaelic. [source]
- Carvals rarely told the Nativity story. They were usually sung without instruments, by a male singer. [source]
- The Foolish Fortnight began on the shortest day, Black Thomas’ Eve (now 21 December), and ended on Twelfth Night (6 January, or Old Christmas Day). [source]
- Hunt the Wren happens on St Stephen’s Day, 26 December, and has gone on in the Isle of Man without a break for longer than written records. [source]
- Hunt the Wren was once found across the British Isles and parts of northern Europe, but long ago died out everywhere except the Isle of Man and Ireland. It has recently been revived in parts of England. [source]
- In the Manx cultural revival of the 1970s and 80s, Hunt the Wren was brought back with a new focus on the dance, and it now flourishes in towns and villages across the island. [source]
Hop tu Naa
- Manx National Heritage describes Hop tu Naa as one of the Isle of Man’s own, unique autumn traditions. [source]
- Manx National Heritage puts turnip carving, live Manx music, traditional dancing and storytelling at the heart of traditional Manx Hop tu Naa. [source]
- Manx National Heritage calls the carved turnip lantern traditional. [source]
- Manx National Heritage marks Hop tu Naa with events at its heritage sites, including a Hop tu Naa Festival at Cregneash. [source]
The full history of Hop tu Naa is coming, on its own site, once we’ve checked it against reliable sources.
New Year and Twelfth Night
- Hogmanay “first footing” says the first visitor after midnight brings luck, especially a tall, dark-haired man carrying a gift such as coal or salt. [source]
- Singing “Auld Lang Syne” at New Year, now a worldwide custom, began at Hogmanay in Scotland. [source]
- Britannica gives Twelfth Night as 5 January, the evening before Epiphany. [source]
- Culture Vannin gives Twelfth Night as 6 January (Old Christmas Day). [source]
- In Italy, Befana is an old woman who fills children’s stockings with presents at Epiphany, 6 January. [source]
Britannica and Culture Vannin give different dates for Twelfth Night, so we show both.
Boxing Day
- Boxing Day, 26 December, is a holiday in Britain and some Commonwealth countries. Traditionally, servants, tradespeople and the poor were given gifts on that day. [source]
- Nobody is sure where the name comes from. Some say it is from church alms boxes being opened for the poor; others say it is from boxes of gifts given to workers the day after Christmas. [source]
Christmas timeline
| When | What the sources say |
|---|---|
| 336 | The church in Rome began formally celebrating Christmas on 25 December in 336, in the reign of the emperor Constantine. [source] |
| 1494 | In his book The Ship of Fools (1494), Sebastian Brant mentions the custom of putting fir branches in houses. [source] |
| 1605 | Fir trees hung with apples are first known in Strasbourg in 1605. [source] |
| 1611 | The first candles on such trees were recorded by a Silesian duchess in 1611. [source] |
| 1644 | Oliver Cromwell did not start the ban on Christmas himself. A 1644 Parliament ordinance confirmed the abolition of the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, before his time as Lord Protector (1653–58). [source] |
| 1660 | From then until the Restoration in 1660, Christmas was officially illegal, and the ban was very unpopular. [source] |
| 1720s | It was first written about in the Isle of Man in the 1720s, when it was already said to be ancient. [source] |
| 1820 | The Hunt the Wren tune was first printed in Mona’s Melodies in 1820. The words were first printed in 1845, in an account by Joseph Train, and have hardly changed since. [source] |
| 23 December 1823 | The poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, often called “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”, was first printed without a name in the Troy Sentinel, a New York newspaper, on 23 December 1823. [source] |
| 1843 | Henry Cole, later the first director of the V&A, sent the first Christmas card in 1843. [source] |
| 1847 | Smith patented his first cracker device in 1847 and perfected it in the 1860s. [source] |
| 1848 | In 1848 the Illustrated London News printed a picture of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their family around a decorated tree. [source] |
| 1851 | The story goes that the Advent calendar was invented in the 19th century by a Munich housewife who was tired of being asked when Christmas would come. The first printed calendars for sale were made in Germany in 1851. [source] |
| 1853 | The first adverts for tree ornaments appeared in 1853. [source] |
| 1863 | The way Santa is drawn today is based on pictures by the cartoonist Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly, starting in 1863. [source] |
| by 1890 | By 1890, F.W. Woolworth was selling $25 million of ornaments a year in the United States, and electric tree lights were already available. [source] |
| 1891 | A.W. Moore published a collection of carval texts, Carvalyn Ghailckagh, in 1891. [source] |
| 1894 | The Halfpenny Post, introduced in 1894, boosted Christmas card sales even more. [source] |
| 1904 | The first known photographs of Hunt the Wren were taken in 1904, in Ramsey and in Douglas. [source] |
| 1920 | The warmest UK Christmas Day temperature on record is 15.6 °C, at Killerton in Devon in 1920. [source] |
| 1925 | The dance was thought lost, but it survived as a children’s game in Lezayre, where Mona Douglas wrote it down in 1925. [source] |
| 1931 | Adverts painted by Haddon Sundblom for the Coca-Cola Company from 1931 helped fix the image of a white-bearded Santa in a red suit, but that image has roots in Nast’s 19th-century drawings. [source] |
| 1932 | The first Christmas Day message by a British monarch was broadcast live by King George V from Sandringham in 1932. [source] |
| 1957 | In 1957, Queen Elizabeth II made her first live televised Christmas broadcast, from Sandringham House. [source] |
| 2010 | Snow lying widely on the ground on Christmas Day is much rarer. Since 1960 it has happened only four times: in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010. [source] |
For much more, including Santa, crackers, carols and the Cromwell years, visit christmas.traditions.im.
Books and kit
For the classroom, a project or a cosy evening: Christmas traditions books · A Christmas Carol · Christmas craft kits · Christmas colouring books · Festivals around the world books · Isle of Man folklore books. These are Amazon UK search links, not endorsements of particular products. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.