Christmastime
Americannoun
Usage
What does Christmastime mean? Christmastime is the Christmas season. Christmas is a Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. Most Christians celebrate the holiday on December 25, but it is celebrated on January 7 in the Orthodox Church due to the use of a different calendar. Christmas is also widely observed in secular (nonreligious) ways. Popular activities include the decoration of a Christmas tree and the exchange of gifts. Most often, the word Christmas refers to Christmas Day—the day on which the holiday is observed, most commonly December 25. But Christmas can be used to mean the same thing as Christmas season or Christmastime. Christmastime is generally thought to start around the beginning of December, though some people in the U. S. begin to decorate or engage in Christmas festivities immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday or even before. Christmastime coincides with the “holiday season,” which in the U. S. is popularly understood to include Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. In religious terms, Christmastime is sometimes considered to extend from Christmas Eve to the feast of the Epiphany or Twelfth Day on January 6. This period is sometimes called Christmastide, though this word can also be used in a more general way to refer to the period from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day. Christmastime is used more generally. By those who celebrate Christmas, Christmastime is often seen as a magical time that’s associated with a sense of hope and wonder and a feeling of festiveness. Example: Christmastime is the season of perpetual hope!
Etymology
Origin of Christmastime
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With its British Christmastime setting, it scratches the same itch as “Notting Hill” or “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 10, 2026
Big rain and snow could hit California around Christmastime, ending a long dry spell for the state.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 16, 2025
Mastercard, Bain, the National Retail Federation, and other forecasters point to 3% to 4% Christmastime growth for retailers.
From Barron's • Nov. 26, 2025
He was also joined by a children's choir to sing his festive favourite Wonderful Christmastime.
From BBC • Dec. 19, 2024
It was cold at Christmastime, cold in the winter there on the Eastern Shore.
From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
