Christmas Eve, on December 24, is the day before Christmas Day, the celebrated birthday of Jesus Christ. It is treated to a greater or a lesser extent in most Christian societies as part of the Christmas season. The day of Christmas Eve is the traditional day to set up the Christmas tree, but as the Christmas season has been extended several weeks back (to Thanksgiving in the United States), many trees will have been set up for weeks.

Christmas Eve (, Noch pered Rozhdestvom), literally translated The Night Before Christmas, is the first story in the second volume of the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol.