Holidays · 16 October 2026 · 5 min read
Christmas in Korea: a holiday for couples, cake and lights
Spend December in Seoul and Christmas is everywhere: trees in the department stores, carols in the cafes, lights along the shopping streets. But it is not the Christmas of Britain or America. In Korea it is a public holiday, a date night and the busiest day of the year for bakeries, and the night that matters is the 24th, not the 25th.
A public holiday, but not a family one
Christmas Day has been a public holiday in South Korea since the late 1940s, which it is not next door in Japan or in mainland China. Christians are a large minority, more than a quarter of the population in the 2015 census, Protestant and Catholic together, and for them the day is a church day as it is anywhere else, with services on Christmas Eve as well.
For everyone else, Christmas is not when the family gathers. Korea has two big family holidays for that, **Seollal**, the Lunar New Year, and **Chuseok**, the autumn harvest festival, when people travel home to their parents. Christmas belongs to couples and friends.
Why it belongs to couples
Part of the reason is history. From 1945 until 1982 South Korea had a curfew at midnight, and Christmas Eve was one of the few nights of the year when it was lifted. A night when you could stay out became the point of the holiday, and it stayed that way after the curfew went.
Today restaurants take bookings for the 24th weeks ahead, hotels sell Christmas packages, and the question everyone hears in December is 크리스마스에 뭐 해요? (keuriseumaseue mwo haeyo?), "what are you doing for Christmas?". Asked by a friend, it can carry a hint of "are you seeing anyone?".
In Korea, Christmas Eve is the big night. Christmas Day is the quiet one after it.
The cake
A Korean Christmas cake is a light sponge with fresh cream and fruit, very often strawberries, from a bakery chain or the bakery round the corner. Most are ordered in advance, and by the afternoon of the 24th the shelves are empty and the signs say 케이크 품절 (keikeu pumjeol), "cakes sold out".
To book one you say 크리스마스 케이크 예약하고 싶어요 (keuriseumaseu keikeu yeyakago sipeoyo), "I would like to order a Christmas cake". The staff will ask what time you will collect it and how many candles you want, because the same counter sells birthday cakes all year.
The end of the year
Christmas sits inside 연말 (yeonmal), the end of the year, the season of 송년회 (songnyeonhoe), year-end dinners with colleagues and friends. Shopping streets and department stores put up light displays from late November, and people go out in the cold to see them.
The greetings run into each other. 메리 크리스마스 (meri keuriseumaseu) is "Merry Christmas", and 크리스마스 잘 보내세요 (keuriseumaseu jal bonaeseyo), "spend Christmas well", is polite enough for a colleague or a shop assistant. From the last week of December people switch to 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (saehae bok mani badeuseyo), "receive a lot of luck in the new year", which carries on well into January and comes back at Seollal. New Year's Day is a public holiday too.
Why the words look English
Most Christmas words in Korean are English said in Korean syllables. A Korean syllable cannot end in most of the consonants English piles together, so each one gets a vowel of its own, and "Christmas" grows to five syllables: 크리스마스, keu-ri-seu-ma-seu. The formal name is different. 성탄절 (seongtanjeol) is built from Sino-Korean parts, "holy", "birth" and "festival day", and it is the word on calendars and official notices. Father Christmas is 산타 할아버지 (santa harabeoji), "grandfather Santa", because Korean adds a family word to an older man where English would not.
If you are in Korea for Christmas
- Book a restaurant for the evening of the 24th early. It is the busiest night of the year for restaurants in the city centres.
- Order a cake a few days ahead if you want one, and collect it before the afternoon of the 24th.
- Banks and offices close on the 25th. Restaurants, cafes and shops in busy districts stay open.
- Expect the centre of Seoul to be crowded on the evening of the 24th, and quiet on the morning of the 25th.
- If you are invited to a church service, 메리 크리스마스 is right there too.