December Global Holidays – Full List of All December Festivities 2021

December global holidays in 2021 and full list of December global festivities.

December Global Holidays include biggest events and festivities of last month of the year from all countries around the world. December Global Festivities are the one that people use to search and also catch up with families and get ready to welcome the new year.

December Global Festivities include Hannukah, Yule, and much more. This has been a year to forget due to the pandemic, so people are looking forward to December Global holidays to end the year on a high.

When are December Global Holidays? Full List of All December Festivities 2021
When are December Global Holidays? (Pexels)

Here is the list of December Global Holidays and Festivities:

  1. Hannukah (10th-18th December)
  2. Yule (21st December-1st January)
  3. Festivus (23rd December)
  4. Christmas (25th December)
  5. Boxing Day (26th December)
  6. Kwanzaa (26 December-1 January)
  7. New Year’s Eve (31 December)

December Global Holidays

December, the last month of the year, is accompanied by a festive mood and happiness. Many religions and countries have several important events happening in December. So people want to know about the December Global Holidays. The entire list of December Global Holidays along with the Religious Holidays In December are listed below.

December Global Holidays 25th December: Most of the countries in the world will be celebrating Christmas on 25th December. 

December Global Holidays 26th December: Kwanzaa, a holiday rooted in African history, is observed by many individuals in both America and around the world. Kwanzaa, first celebrated in 1966, is a seven-day holiday, with one of the Nguzo Saba, or seven African Heritage principles, highlighted every day.

December Global Holidays 29th December: Boxing Day is a long-standing holiday with two different definitions of boxing” usually in parts of the globe inspired by England. In a more recent tradition, to celebrate their good work of the past year some of the employers will give the workers a Christmas box on Boxing Day.

December Global Holidays 31st December: Everyone will celebrate New year’s Eve on 31st December.

crop man cutting satin ribbon
Let’s prepared for December Global Festivities 2021. (Pexels)

For reference, here are 7 December holidays around the world.

December Global Holidays List

  • December 1st – United Arab Emirates (National Day)
  • December 4th – Ghana (Farmer’s Day)
  • December 6th – Finland (Independence Day), Spain (Constitution Day)
  • December 7th – Thailand (King Bhumibol’s Birthday)
  • December 10th – Thailand (Constitution Day)
  • December 12th – Mexico (The Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe)
  • December 13th – Malta (Republic day)
  • December 16th – Bangladesh (Victory Day), South Africa (Day of Reconciliation)
  • December 18th – Qatar (National Day)
  • December 24th – Christmas Eve, Libya (Independence Day)
  • December 25th – Christmas Day, Pakistan (Birthday of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah)
  • December 26th – Various Countries (Boxing Day), Slovenia (Independence and Unity Day)
  • December 29th – Sri Lanka (Unduvap Full Moon Poya)
  • December 30th – Philippines (Rizal Day)
  • December 31st – Various Countries (New Year’s Eve)

Religious Holidays in December

For many religions, December is an important month. Many significant events are marked in December and there are different customs for welcoming the New Year. Here are some of the religious holidays in December:

  • December 10 – Hanukkah, an eight-day Jewish festival celebrating the story of miraculous provision.
  • December 21 – Yule, a holiday signifying over a millennium of history and traditions, many of these are Christman traditions that we know today.
  • December 25 -Christmas, Celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.
  • December 26 – Kwanzaa, a seven-day African holiday celebrating their heritage.
  • December 31 – Omisaka, the Japanese tradition of welcoming the New Year with friends and family.

December Global Festivities

As we celebrate Christmas this month, Google Doodle marks various December Global Festivities like Hannukah which is celebrated on December 10th-18th, Yule(21st December-1st January).

The December Global Festivities listed below will be celebrated in the month of December. People around the world are excited to celebrate Christmas in a different way this year.

The different December Global Festivities according to the date is given here, so just have a loo and celebrate each December Global Festivities with your family, friends, loved ones.

Hanukkah (10th-18th December)

According to the Hebrew calendar, Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish festival that traditionally falls on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. This year it falls on Thursday, December 10th.

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar. It may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, called a menorah (or hanukkah). One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles. This unique candle is called the shamash (Hebrew: שַׁמָּשׁ‎, “attendant”).

Each night, one additional candle is lit by the shamash until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival. Other Hanukkah festivities include playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Since the 1970s, the worldwide Chabad Hasidic movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open public places in many countries.

Hanukkah is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Hanukkah is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Yule (21st December-1st January)

Yule, sometimes referred to as Yuletide, is celebrated by the citizens of Germany. In particular, the Norse god Odin and the Anglo-Saxon Modraniht festival have pagan origins. It is more akin to Christmas these days, with people meeting for meals and gift giving. Indeed a variety of Christmas traditions, such as the Yule log, have been spawned.

Yule underwent Christianised reformulation, resulting in the term Christmastide. Many present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from pagan Yule traditions. T

erms with an etymological equivalent to Yule are still used in Nordic countries and Estonia to describe Christmas and other festivals occurring during the winter holiday season. Today, Yule is celebrated in Heathenry and other forms of Neopaganism, as well as in LaVeyan Satanism.

Yule is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Festivus (23rd December)

The Seinfeld Episode Strike festival entered popular culture in 1997. The parody holiday is a small stand against Christmas consumerism, and as opposed to a decorated tree, stands around a decorative aluminium pole.

Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season. Originally created by author Daniel O’Keefe, Festivus entered popular culture after it was made the focus of the 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Strike”, which O’Keefe’s son, Dan O’Keefe, co-wrote.

The non-commercial holiday’s celebration, as depicted on Seinfeld, occurs on December 23 and includes a Festivus dinner, an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength”, and the labeling of easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles.”[3] The episode refers to it as “a Festivus for the rest of us”.

It has been described both as a parody holiday festival and as a form of playful consumer resistance. Journalist Allen Salkin describes it as “the perfect secular theme for an all-inclusive December gathering”.

Festivus is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Christmas (25th December)

On December 25, the day of Jesus Christ’s birth, much of the world celebrates Christmas. To correspond with the winter weather in the Roman calendar, this date was selected. The date of the birth of Jesus is in fact, uncertain. On the 24th, some individuals celebrate Christmas, and some communities even celebrate it in January.

In the Christian faith, Christmas is the historical celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Whether celebrated for this religious reason or solely as a cultural celebration, Christmas traditions vary around the world.

While Americans celebrate with Christmas trees, visits from Santa Claus, and dreams of snowy landscapes, Christmas falls during Australia’s summer, where it is popular to go camping or to the beach over the holiday. Some Australians decorate a “Christmas Bush,” a native Australian tree with small green leaves and flowers that turn red during the summer.

In England, Christmas traditions are similar to those in the United States, but instead of leaving milk and cookies for Santa Claus, children leave mince pies and brandy for Father Christmas. In Iceland, capital city Reykjavik turns into a winter wonderland with its Christmas market and for the children, there is not one but thirteen Santas, known as Yule Lads. One arrives each night in the thirteen days before Christmas, leaving small gifts in shoes left in window sills. Read more about how Christmas is celebrated around the world here.

Christmas is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

decorative elements for christmas on black surface in light room
Christmas is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Boxing Day (26th December)

The hypotheses about how it got its name the day after Christmas are competing. One is connected to donation boxes given to the poor after Christmas by churches, a tradition in the Middle Ages.

Boxing Day takes place on December 26. Only celebrated in a few countries, the holiday originated in the United Kingdom during the Middle Ages. It was the day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were opened and their content distributed, a tradition that still happens in some areas. It was also the day servants were traditionally given the day off to celebrate Christmas with their families.

Boxing Day has now become a public holiday in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among other countries. In England, soccer matches and horse races often take place on Boxing Day. The Irish refer to the holiday as St. Stephen’s Day, and they have their own tradition called hunting the wren, in which boys fasten a fake wren to a pole and parade it through town. The Bahamas celebrate Boxing Day with a street parade and festival called Junkanoo. Learn more about the origins of Boxing Day here.

Boxing Day is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Boxing Day is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

Kwanzaa (26 December-1 January)

Kwanzaa is an African-American culture festival that lasts for seven days. With the giving of gifts and sharing of a meal, it ends on 1 January. The festival was founded by Maulana Karenga, an African studies festival and an active member of the Black Power movement, and was first held in 1966.

According to Karenga, the name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning “first fruits of the harvest”. A more conventional translation would simply be “first fruits”. The choice of Swahili, an East African language, is ahistoric, as most of the Atlantic slave trade that brought African people to America originated in West Africa.

First fruits festivals exist in Southern Africa, celebrated in December/January with the southern solstice, and Karenga was partly inspired by an account he read of the Zulu festival Umkhosi Wokweshwama. It was decided to spell the holiday’s name with an additional “a” so that it would have a symbolic seven letters.

Kwanzaa is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

New Year’s Eve (31 December)

This year’s New Year celebrations will be low because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New Year’s Eve is celebrated at evening parties, where many people dance, eat, drink, and watch or light fireworks. Some Christians attend a watch night service. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into New Year’s Day, 1 January.

The Line Islands (part of Kiribati) and Tonga, are examples of the first places to welcome the New Year, while Baker Island (an uninhabited atoll part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands) and American Samoa are among the last.

New Year is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.

New Year is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021.
New Year is one of December Global Holidays in the year of 2021. (Photo: Pexels)

Google Doodle series celebrates the many global holidays in December

Google has a new Doodle to help you search for December holidays around the world. Hanukkah, Christmas and Festivus are just a few of the well-known celebrations taking place. The Doodle is a reminder that there are many different ways to celebrate the holidays in the U.S. and around the globe. It’s a good reminder to search for your favorite year-end festivities online.

  • Starting on December 21 and running through January 1, there are many who celebrate Yule, a holiday with over a millennium of history and traditions, much of which formed the basis of what many know today as Christmas traditions. Each year, Yule is set to start on the day of the winter solstice.
  • Every year, on December 23, fans of the show Seinfeld celebrate Festivus by gathering around an aluminum pole and participating in the “Airing of Grievances.” In a year like 2021, it’s easy to imagine folks have quite a few grievances to air. While Festivus rose to popularity in 1997, it was a tradition in the creator’s family for over 30 years.
  • For most of the world, Christmas takes place on December 25, serving for Christians as a celebration of Jesus’s birth, while many others take it as an opportunity to give gifts of appreciation to friends and family. Interestingly, in some traditions around the globe, Christmas is not a December holiday, but actually falls on January 6, 7, or even as late as January 19.
  • On December 26, many people both in America and around the globe celebrate Kwanzaa, a holiday rooted in African heritage. First celebrated in 1966, Kwanzaa is a seven-day holiday, with each day highlighting one of the Nguzo Saba — or “seven principles of African Heritage.” Celebrants also mark Kwanzaa with a kinara, a special candelabra with seven candles, one for each day.
  • Also taking place on December 26, Boxing Day is a long-standing holiday — typically in parts of the globe influenced by England — with two distinct meanings to “boxing.” In one tradition, Boxing Day is the day where churches would open their alms box and give money to the poor. In a more recent tradition, some employers will give their workers a “Christmas box” on Boxing Day to honor their good work of the past year. For most though, Boxing Day is an excuse to visit extended family as well as watch a lot of football.
  • Lastly, on December 31, we all celebrate New Year’s Eve as the final day of the year and the day after which we can all finally put 2020 behind us. In Japan, this is celebrated as Ōmisoka, with friends and family often gathering for toshikoshi soba — or “year-crossing noodle.”

This year of 2021, December, a month that encompasses the Christian and Jewish celebrations of Christmas and Hanukkah, includes spiritually significant days for Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans and Zoroastrians.

What are important dates in December 2021?

Find the table below of important days in December 2021

DatesImportant Days
1 DecemberWorld AIDS Day
 2 DecemberNational Pollution Control Day
2 DecemberInternational Day for the Abolition of Slavery
3 DecemberWorld Day of the Handicapped
4 DecemberIndian Navy Day
5 DecemberInternational Volunteer Day
5 DecemberWorld Soil Day
7 DecemberArmed Forces Flag Day
7 DecemberInternational Civil Aviation Day
9 DecemberInternational Anti-Corruption Day
10 DecemberHuman Rights Day
11 DecemberInternational Mountain Day
14 December National Energy Conservation Day
15 DecemberInternational Tea Day
16 DecemberVijay Diwas
18 DecemberMinorities Rights Day in India
18 DecemberMinorities Rights Day in India
19 DecemberGoa’s Liberation Day
20 DecemberInternational Human Solidarity Day
22 DecemberNational Mathematics Day
23 DecemberKisan Diwas
24 DecemberNational Consumer Rights Day
25 DecemberChristmas Day
25 DecemberGood Governance Day (India)
31 DecemberNew Year’s Eve

Top 10 biggest holidays around the world in 2021

  1. Christmas.
  2. Hanukkah.
  3. New Year.
  4. Chinese New Year.
  5. Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr.
  6. Easter.
  7. Valentine’s Day.
  8. Diwali.
  9. Halloween
  10. Bodhi Day

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