# Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Celebrate Christmas? No, and Here Is Why Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/jehovahs-witnesses-christmas/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2025-05-11 Updated: 2026-11-05 No. Jehovah's Witnesses, who see themselves as Christians, do not celebrate Christmas. Their own website gives the reasons in a few lines: Jesus told his followers to remember his death, not his birth; the Bible never gives the date he was born; and they believe the feast grew out of pagan customs that God does not approve. Their answer begins at a supper table, on the night before Jesus died, when he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, "saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). The Witnesses' own Bible, the New World Translation, renders it "Keep doing this in remembrance of me." They read those words as the one remembrance Jesus asked for, and they keep it once a year, on the night it was first given. Christmas, to them, is a remembrance he never asked for, and so they leave it alone. Any Christian who has heard "this do in remembrance of me" spoken over bread knows why those words weigh so much with them, even if we do not draw their conclusion. ## Why don't Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate Christmas? If you want their reasons in their own words, the Witnesses' answer to this very question on jw.org lists four: - "Jesus commanded that we commemorate his death, not his birth" (Luke 22:19, 20). - "Jesus' apostles and early disciples did not celebrate Christmas." They cite the New Catholic Encyclopedia, which says that "the Nativity feast was instituted no earlier than 243," more than a century after the last of the apostles died. - "There is no proof that Jesus was born on December 25; his birth date is not recorded in the Bible." - "We believe that Christmas is not approved by God because it is rooted in pagan customs and rites" (2 Corinthians 6:17). Under all four lies a wish that every Christian ought to recognise, because it is our own: to worship God in a way he accepts. Before deciding whether to keep any holiday, jw.org says, "Jehovah's Witnesses consult the Bible," and where a celebration "clearly" breaks a Bible principle, they take no part. Their article on the Bible and Christmas puts the fear behind it in one line: "The Bible shows that we offend God if we try to worship him in a way that he does not approve of." A Christian who keeps Christmas could say that sentence and mean every word of it. Where we differ from the Witnesses is over whether Christmas is such a worship. The story they reach for is the golden calf, and it is a frightening one when you slow down over it. When Aaron saw the calf the people had made, he built an altar before it and announced, "To morrow is a feast to the Lord" (Exodus 32:5). A feast called by the Lord's own name, kept before a calf of gold: that is the danger a Witness sees in December, and the command they hear in it is Paul's, in the King James words: "come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing" (2 Corinthians 6:17). Their book Keep Yourselves in God's Love draws the lesson this way: "If we want to keep ourselves in God's love, we must 'touch nothing unclean' and jealously guard the truth against any form of corruption." The same book reads Luke's account of the birth closely. On that night "there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8), and the book argues that flocks around Bethlehem were kept under cover in the cold, rainy winter, so shepherds out in the field point away from December. It adds that Caesar would hardly have ordered "a people who were resentful of Roman rule" to travel to their ancestral towns for a census in the dead of winter. On the date, those of us who keep Christmas can agree with the Witnesses more than they might expect, since the Gospels give no day and we keep the feast to remember the birth, whatever day it fell on. The angel who woke the shepherds named no date either. He named a child, born "this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). Their articles trace the other customs back as well, each to an encyclopedia. The feasting, the gifts and the candles go back, they say, to the Roman Saturnalia, and the lights and evergreens to Europe's old winter-solstice festivals. Mistletoe and holly they trace to the Druids, and the Christmas tree to the tree worship of pagan Europe. Christians who keep Christmas weigh those links differently, and the case for and against each of them is set out in [is Christmas pagan?](https://christianpure.com/learn/evidence-christmas-pagan-origins/) The tree is the clearest example. The decorated tree is first recorded in German-speaking towns in the 1500s, and no record ties it to a pagan rite; greenery in houses at midwinter is older, but it is a custom of its own. When we set a tree in the window, we are keeping a custom from those German-speaking towns, and the child we keep it for is the one in Luke's manger. ## Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe in Jesus? Yes, and they are quick to say so. Their Christmas page answers the common mistake directly: "We are Christians. We believe that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ." The verse they give is Peter's, "for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). On who Jesus is, though, their teaching parts from the Nicene Creed that Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches confess. Witnesses honour Jesus "as our Savior and as the Son of God," jw.org says, and they add that "Jesus is not Almighty God and that there is no Scriptural basis for the Trinity doctrine." The creed confesses the Son as "true God from true God," "of one Being with the Father." For those of us who say that creed, it is the heart of Christmas: the child in the manger is God himself come among us, and a Witness does not believe it. There is more on that difference in [what Jehovah's Witnesses believe about Jesus](https://christianpure.com/learn/jehovahs-witnesses-jesus-beliefs/). It is not, however, the reason they give for leaving Christmas alone; their reasons are the four above. They answer a second complaint too, that they miss the goodwill of the season. "We strive to be generous and peaceable every day," jw.org says, and it points to Jesus' words to the Twelve, which the Witnesses take as the rule for their meetings and their preaching: in the King James words, "freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). Every one of us could wish to be held to that in March as much as in December. ## What do Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate instead? The night they keep instead is the night of the supper, which they call the Memorial of Christ's death, or the Lord's Evening Meal, and speak of as a sacred occasion. Jesus gave the bread and the cup on the night of the Passover, and the Passover came once a year, so the Witnesses keep the Memorial once a year, "after sundown on Nisan 14," the date of that night in the Bible's lunar calendar. Because the lunar date moves, so does the day of the week: the next Memorial falls on Monday, 22 March 2027, and the one after on Sunday, 9 April 2028. It is a simple evening of about an hour, with a talk on the meaning of Jesus' death, opening and closing with song and prayer. Then come unleavened bread and plain red wine, which the Witnesses hold to be "emblems, or symbols, of Christ's flesh and blood." Most Christians would know that table. The bread and the cup are the ones most churches set out in memory of the same night, and whatever divides us, we are all looking back to the room where Jesus said, "this do in remembrance of me." For the Witnesses the meal is a remembrance and a thanksgiving; they say it "is not a sacrament." Only "a small fraction" of them eat and drink: those they believe God has called to rule with Christ in heaven, whose number they read in Revelation as 144,000. The rest, who hope to live forever on earth, "join in expressing thanks for the sacrifice that Jesus made in our behalf." We who keep the supper in other churches part from them here, because at that first table Jesus said "given for you" to every disciple who sat with him. If you have a Witness in the family, the Memorial is an evening you can share with them. "Everyone is welcome," their invitation says. There is no fee and no collection, and no dress code, though Witnesses "try to dress in a way that shows respect for this sacred occasion." Visitors are free to bring their family and friends. To sit beside someone you love on the night they hold most sacred tells them a good deal without a word of argument. ## Can a Jehovah's Witness come to a Christmas meal or accept a gift? Sometimes, and the Witnesses leave much of it to each person's conscience. They do not join in the customs of the day, the carols, toasts or gift exchanges, but their Bible course, Enjoy Life Forever!, walks through the ordinary moments of December and leaves room for kindness in each of them: | At Christmas | What a Witness may do | In jw.org's words | | --- | --- | --- | | Someone wishes them a happy holiday | Thank them | "You may simply say, 'Thank you.'" | | A gift from a friend who knows they don't celebrate | Decide by conscience | "It is up to you to decide whether to accept the gift." | | A husband or wife who is not a Witness invites them to a holiday meal with relatives | Go if conscience allows | "If your conscience allows you to go" | | A year-end bonus at work | May accept it | "Should you reject the bonus? Not necessarily." | | Christmas parties, plays, carols and gift exchanges | Take no part | "We take no part in Christmas parties, plays, singing, exchanging of gifts" | So when a Witness joins a husband's or wife's relatives for the holiday meal, they have come for the family. Their book asks a Witness at such a meal to let the family see "that his visit is purely to enjoy a meal with relatives," and allows them to treat it as a common meal, without joining "in any holiday greetings, songs, toasts, and so forth." It helps to talk it over beforehand with the husband or wife, who "might decide to visit on another day." If one glass stays on the table when the others are raised, it is a conscience being kept, and the one keeping it is still sitting at your table. With a gift, the Witnesses look at the spirit in which it comes. If the giver is simply being kind and the Witness's "conscience would be at rest," the Witness may accept and "express thanks without any reference to the holiday." If the gift is meant to show that the Witness "will compromise for material gain," it is best declined. None of this makes them grudging about presents. Witnesses "enjoy giving gifts and having good times together throughout the year," says their brochure for schoolteachers; they stay out of Christmas exchanges because jw.org traces "the giving of gifts" at Christmas to the Roman Saturnalia. A present from a Witness friend may simply arrive in another month. ## How can you be kind to a Witness in your family at Christmas? Their own page says that when a Witness stops sharing in holidays, "some of his or her relatives may feel upset, hurt, or even betrayed." Their answer is love shown on other days. The same page says that "many of Jehovah's Witnesses take the initiative to reassure their relatives of their love, to explain tactfully the reasons for their decisions, and to visit their relatives on other occasions." We can meet them there: a meal in January, a visit on an ordinary Saturday, a present in another month. There are more ideas in [how to give a gift to a Jehovah's Witness friend](https://christianpure.com/learn/gift-giving-jw-friends/). They do not ask you to give up your own Christmas. "We respect each person's right to decide for himself in this matter," they write. "We do not interfere in the Christmas celebrations of others." And if you grew up a Witness and now keep Christmas yourself, perhaps for the first time, you are keeping it for the same Lord whose supper your family still remembers each spring, and that is a good deal to share across a divided table. ## How do other Christians see Christmas? Most churches keep Christmas gladly, and they read the Bible's silence about the date as freedom more than as a warning: Paul allows that whoever keeps a holy day keeps it "unto the Lord" (Romans 14:6). The Catholic Church ties the feast to Easter. Its Catechism says that the feasts of the incarnation, Christmas among them, "commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery." Lutherans, in the Augsburg Confession of 1530, keep the usages "which may be observed without sin," naming "particular holy days, festivals, and the like," and they add that "consciences are not to be burdened, as though such observance was necessary to salvation." Set side by side, the two say what Christmas is to those of us who keep it. It is a thanksgiving that the Son of God came among us as a child, and the first light of Easter already falls on the manger. We keep it gladly and we keep it freely, and nobody's salvation hangs on it. So the Witness who stays home on Christmas Eve and the neighbour who sings carols down the street both remember the night Jesus was betrayed, when he took the bread and the cup. The Witnesses remember it once a year, at the Memorial, where most of them do not eat or drink, and the churches remember it all through the year. Both take their practice from the words Paul handed on, and whatever divides us in December, we are all waiting for the same Lord: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come" (1 Corinthians 11:26). --- ## Related reading - [Why don't Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate New Year's?](https://christianpure.com/learn/jehovahs-witnesses-new-years-celebration/) - [Why don't Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate Halloween?](https://christianpure.com/learn/jehovahs-witnesses-halloween-2/) - [Are Christmas trees pagan?](https://christianpure.com/learn/pagan-origins-christmas-tree/) - [What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe about Jesus?](https://christianpure.com/learn/jehovahs-witnesses-jesus-beliefs/) - [Is it a sin to celebrate Christmas?](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-christmas-celebration/) - [Why is Christmas celebrated on 25 December?](https://christianpure.com/learn/christmas-december-25th-origin/) - [What Do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?](https://christianpure.com/learn/what-do-jehovahs-witnesses-believe/) --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). 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