Do Chinese people celebrate Christmas (and Halloween)?

How Chinese people celebrate Christmas

Christmas in China is a festival of shopping, food and going out. Malls in big cities decorate in red and green and play Christmas songs, and the trees are mostly artificial ones put up by retailers. Christmas is called 圣诞节 (Shèngdàn jié, “holy birth festival”) and Santa is 圣诞老人 (Shèngdàn lǎorén, “old Christmas man”).

For most people it is a day for friends and going out rather than family. The family festival in China is Spring Festival, a few weeks later. Interest is strongest among people in their twenties: almost half of Baidu searches for Christmas in October 2025 came from 20–29-year-olds.

Cities with many foreign residents also hold Christmas markets. In 2025 Shanghai’s Huangpu district hosted a German-style market near the Bund from 26 November to 28 December, with more than 45 wooden stalls selling mulled wine, gingerbread and crafts.[4][6][7]

Why Chinese people give apples on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is 平安夜 (Píng’ān yè), “peaceful night”, and the word for apple, 苹果 (píngguǒ), starts with the same sound as 平安 (píng’ān, “peace”). So young people give friends an apple on Christmas Eve as a wish for a safe year.

These are not ordinary apples: they come in gift boxes, wrapped in cellophane and ribbon, sometimes printed with Christmas messages, and sell for several times the normal price. Older generations rarely take part.[4][5]

What Chinese people eat for Christmas

There is no traditional Chinese Christmas dinner. People go out for a meal, often Western food or a restaurant’s Christmas set menu, and on social media the most-mentioned Christmas products in 2025 were desserts, chocolate above all. Fast-food chains run Christmas campaigns: a KFC campaign with the cartoon character Loopy drew more than 1.93 billion plays on Douyin.[6]

China makes the world’s Christmas decorations

Much of the world’s Christmas decorations come from China, and the centre of the trade is Yiwu in Zhejiang province, which makes about two-thirds of the world’s festive products. Yiwu ships more than 20,000 kinds of Christmas products to over 100 countries, and its exports reached ¥5.17 billion in the first nine months of 2025. Factories there ship from spring to summer, so the decorations reach Europe and Latin America in time.

Inside China, the decorations people see most are in malls: large artificial trees and lights, mostly put up by retailers rather than in people’s homes.[1][2][4]

Do Chinese people celebrate Halloween?

Halloween (万圣节, Wànshèng jié) has no Chinese roots and no day off, but it has become a big theme-park season. In 2026 Shanghai Disneyland runs Halloween events from 4 October to 1 November, with ten “Spook-tacular Days” of costumed parades, and Disneytown has a trick-or-treat trail. Universal Beijing’s Scares at Universal runs from 4 September to 1 November 2026, with five haunted mazes, including ones based on Chinese folklore, a tomb-raiding novel series and the NetEase game Identity V.[10][9][8]

How Chinese people celebrate birthdays

Chinese people do celebrate birthdays. The traditional birthday food is longevity noodles (长寿面, chángshòu miàn): the whole family eats them, stretching each noodle as long as possible, as a wish for a long life.

A child’s first birthday has its own ritual, 抓周 (zhuāzhōu). The baby is set in front of objects such as a book, a pen, an abacus or money, and whatever it grabs is taken, half seriously, as a sign of its future career. The custom has been recorded since the Song dynasty.[13][14]