Christmas Eve

English

Etymology

From Middle English Cristemasse eve, from an assumed Old English *Cristes mæsseǣfen.

Pronunciation
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Proper noun

Christmas Eve (plural Christmas Eves)

  1. The evening before Christmas Day.
  2. The day before Christmas Day.
    • 1681, Church of England, The book of common prayer:
      This Collect is to be repeated every day with the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas-Eve.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXX, page 48:
      With trembling fingers did we weave
      ⁠The holly round the Chrismas hearth;
      ⁠A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
      And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
    • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 27:
      Why was the cock supposed to crow all Christmas Eve ("The bird of dawning singeth all night long")?
    • 1986, The Philippine Journal of Education, volume 65, page 38, column 1:
      The family celebrated Christmas Eves together in the military stockade, sleeping on mattresses on the floor of Ninoy’s cell.
    • 2015, Rhoda G. Penny, chapter 7, in An Extra Ordinary Life, Mustang, Okla.: Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC, →ISBN, page 62:
      Brad led Matthew into the family room where they celebrated Christmas Eves and told Matthew, “Papa’s gone. He’s in heaven, and we’ll never see him again.”
    • 2017, Gillian McAllister, Everything but the Truth, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 294:
      And I was mourning the future, too. That Wally wouldn’t spend Christmas Eves with both of his parents, dressed up like a Santa or a Christmas pudding, overindulged in the morning.
    • 2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 30:
      In 1965, all Coventry's banks closed at noon on Christmas Eve for the first time, to "enable bank staff to get away at a reasonable time". […] On Christmas Day itself there will be no trains, for recent experience has shown that few wish to travel then, even on services which had been drastically reduced: earlier closing of shops and offices on Christmas Eve is the chief reason for this change in the pattern of travel.

Translations
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See also
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