India

The shape of the season

India is home to more than 30 million Christians, more people than the entire population of Australia, and where Christmas is celebrated, it's celebrated with a distinctly Indian warmth and color. Concentrated in Goa, Kerala, Mumbai, the northeast, and Tamil Nadu, and observed in some form by people of many faiths, an Indian Christmas blends European Catholic traditions left by Portuguese and British colonialism with local materials, climate, and hospitality. There's no snow and rarely an evergreen, but there is light, star-shaped and glowing, hung over millions of homes from early December.

The star lanterns

India's single most distinctive Christmas decoration is the star lantern, a large, multi-pointed paper star, lit from within, hung from balconies, doorways, shopfronts, and across streets from early December. In a season without pine trees or snow, the illuminated star is the visual heart of the celebration: a nod to the Star of Bethlehem, made in bright translucent paper in every color, swaying and glowing after dark. In Christian neighborhoods of Mumbai, Goa, Kerala, and Bangalore, whole lanes hang star after star until the streets are roofed in light. Buying and hanging the family star is, for many Indian Christians, the equivalent of putting up the tree.

Goa and the Catholic south

Goa, with its centuries of Portuguese Catholic heritage, keeps the most elaborate Christmas in the country. Churches are decorated and packed for a midnight Mass that spills into fireworks, music, and feasting; homes are scrubbed and lit; and the celebration has an almost carnival energy. Kerala, with one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, tracing its roots to the apostle Thomas, observes a deep and devout Christmas, as do the Christian-majority states of the northeast like Nagaland and Mizoram, where carol singing and community feasts are central. Across the south, carolers move through Christian neighborhoods in the evenings, singing in English, Konkani, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi.

Trees of mango and banana

With evergreens scarce, Indian families improvise the Christmas tree with whatever grows. In many regions, people decorate a mango or banana tree, or branches of local trees, with lights, ornaments, and cotton wool standing in for snow. Artificial trees are common in cities now, but the older custom of dressing a living local tree, or even a potted plant, captures the same spirit with the materials at hand, and is a lovely example of a global tradition naturalizing into a new place.

Plum cake for everyone

The great edible tradition of an Indian Christmas is plum cake, a dense, dark, richly spiced fruit cake, with the dried fruit soaked in rum and brandy for weeks (sometimes months) beforehand, baked in November and aged before being cut into portions. And here's the lovely part: it's shared widely, gifted to neighbors, colleagues, and friends regardless of their religion. Christmas plum cake circulates through Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian homes alike as a gesture of seasonal goodwill, one of the warmest expressions of India's pluralism.

At the table

The Christmas meal is regional and, in Goa, gloriously Indo-Portuguese. Goan Christmas tables feature vindaloo (the original, a fiery vinegar-and-garlic pork dish, quite different from its British-curry-house namesake), sorpotel (a tangy, spicy pork stew), and bebinca (a layered coconut-and-egg dessert baked one painstaking layer at a time). Across the country, the season's sweets include kulkuls (little curled fried-dough treats), neureos (sweet coconut pastries), and milk toffee, alongside the all-important plum cake.

How gifts are given

Father Christmas, known regionally as Christmas Thaathaa in Tamil, Baba Christmas in Hindi-speaking areas, or simply Santa, is said to deliver gifts overnight on Christmas Eve, with families exchanging presents on Christmas morning. In Goa and other Catholic strongholds, the night centers on the midnight Mass; the gifts and the feast follow.

If you wanted to borrow this tradition

The most beautiful Indian custom to adopt is the plum-cake-for-everyone spirit: bake or buy a rich fruit cake and give pieces of it to neighbors and friends across whatever lines usually divide a street, a small, edible act of goodwill that asks nothing in return. The star lantern is also a wonderful, space-saving alternative or complement to a tree: a single glowing paper star in a window carries the whole symbol of the season and looks magical after dark.

And the Indian habit of decorating whatever tree you have, whether a houseplant, a potted citrus, or a branch, is a freeing reminder that the Christmas tree was always about the gesture, not the species.

Did you know

• India has over 30 million Christians, more than the population of Australia, and one of Asia's most distinctive Christmas cultures, blending Portuguese and British colonial Catholicism with Indian celebration.
• The glowing multi-pointed paper star lantern, not the evergreen, is India's signature Christmas decoration, hung over homes and across whole streets from early December.
• Christmas plum cake, with its fruit soaked in rum and brandy for weeks, is gifted across religious lines, circulating through Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian homes alike as a shared seasonal tradition.