China

The shape of the season

Christmas in China is a young, urban, almost entirely secular phenomenon, and a fascinating one, because it grew up in a country where Christmas isn't a public holiday and only a small minority is Christian. December 25 is a normal workday for most people. Yet in the big cities, Christmas Eve (Ping'an Ye, "Peaceful Night") has become a genuine event: a night of dazzling shopping-district light displays, romantic dates, gift exchanges among friends, and one uniquely Chinese tradition involving a carefully wrapped apple. It's Christmas reinvented as a commercial and romantic occasion rather than a religious or family one.

The peace apple

China's most distinctive Christmas custom is the píng'ān guǒ, the "peace apple." On Christmas Eve, people give each other apples, often single apples wrapped in elaborate, colorful cellophane, ribbons, and printed boxes, sold for far more than an ordinary apple would ever cost. The whole tradition is a pun. Christmas Eve in Mandarin is Ping'an Ye (平安夜), "Peaceful Night," and the word for apple, píngguǒ (苹果), begins with the same píng sound as píng'ān (peace). So giving an apple on Ping'an night became a way of wishing someone peace and safety. It emerged in the 2000s entirely from that wordplay, and today tens of millions of decorative apples change hands every December 24. It is a Christmas tradition invented in China, for China, out of a homophone.

Ping'an Ye over Christmas Day

Tellingly, it's the Eve that matters, not the day. Ping'an Ye is far more celebrated than December 25 itself, which for most people is simply another working day. The action is concentrated on the night of the 24th: meeting friends or a date, walking the lit-up streets, exchanging apples and small gifts, and taking in the displays.

A romantic, commercial holiday

Without the family and religious framework it carries in the West, Chinese Christmas has settled into a role much like Valentine's Day. It's primarily a couples' and friends' occasion, a popular date night, with restaurants and bars busy and young people exchanging gifts. Retailers and shopping malls drive much of it: Christmas is, above all, a commercial season, embraced enthusiastically by stores as a reason to decorate, promote, and draw crowds. The traditional Chinese gift-giving holiday remains Lunar New Year, a few weeks later; Christmas is the fun, imported, lights-and-romance prelude.

The light displays

The visual heart of a Chinese Christmas is the commercial-district illumination. Major shopping streets and malls go all out: enormous Christmas trees, sweeping light installations, and Santa-themed window dressing. Shanghai's Nanjing Road, Beijing's Wangfujing, and Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui (where the harbor-front buildings light up across the water) draw huge crowds who come specifically to see the displays and take photos. Home decoration, by contrast, remains uncommon outside Christian families. The Chinese Christmas is something you go out to experience, in the glowing public spaces of the city, rather than something you build at home.

At the table

There's no traditional Chinese Christmas dish beyond the peace apple. For those who want to mark the day with a meal, Christmas dinner usually means trying Western food as a novelty: turkey, roast goose, or "Christmas cake" at a hotel or Western-style restaurant, more as a one-off experience than an annual culinary tradition. The apple, wrapped and gifted, is the only food that's genuinely Chinese Christmas.

How gifts are given

Among urban young adults, exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, between couples and friend groups, has become increasingly common, alongside the apples. But it's modest compared to the Western gift avalanche, and it isn't a family event. The big family gift-giving and feasting still belong to Lunar New Year; Christmas gifting is a lighter, peer-to-peer affair.

If you wanted to borrow this tradition

The peace apple is a genuinely lovely, low-cost idea worth borrowing anywhere: give someone a single, nicely wrapped apple with a wish for peace and safety in the year ahead. It costs almost nothing, it's a small and thoughtful gesture rather than a big purchase, and it carries a meaning, peace, that's easy to lose under the season's commercialism.

China's version is also a useful reminder that Christmas adapts to wherever it lands: stripped of its Western family-and-religion frame, it became a night of lights, friendship, and a clever pun, proof that the holiday's appeal travels even when its origins don't.

Did you know

• The Chinese tradition of giving wrapped apples on Christmas Eve was born in the 2000s purely from a pun: Ping'an Ye ("Peaceful Night") shares its ping sound with píngguǒ ("apple"), so an apple became a wish for peace.
• Christmas is not a public holiday in mainland China (most people work on December 25), yet Ping'an Ye, Christmas Eve, has become a major night out in the cities.
• Chinese Christmas functions more like Valentine's Day than a family holiday: it's largely a romantic and social occasion centered on couples, friends, and the city's light displays.