Christmas is celebrated to mark the birth of Jesus Christ. It is observed on December 25. The celebration begins on December 24 evening, called Christmas Eve.
The word Christmas is the contraction of the words Christ’s mass, which is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and the Old English Cristes mæsse.
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The suffix –mas is from maesse, which means ‘festival,’ ‘feast day’ or ‘mass.’ Maesse is derived from the common Latin word messa, which means ‘dismissal’ and is taken from the formal Latin word missa, the feminine past participle of mittere, meaning ‘to let go’ or ‘to send.’
Over time, missa came to signify the Eucharistic service—a practice that continues in Catholic churches, probably because the concluding words of the service are “ite, missa est” meaning, “go, the mass is over,” or “the prayer has been sent.”
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