Christmas and New Year are very special occasions in Egypt. Actually the 2 of them are more or less the same for Egyptians. When Egyptians mention the word “Christmas” usually they would mean the New Year’s Eve or New Year Celebrations. Christmas ( or New Year’s eve) is celebrated by most of the Egyptians (Muslims and Christians). The celebration way may differ from one person to another (We will come to that later 😉 ).
But what about Christmas (the celebrations of the birth of Jesus). Mainly Christmas in Egypt is not celebrated on the 25th of December… it is celebrated the 7th of January 🙂 Most Egyptians Christians are Orthodox that’s why they celebrate the Christmas on the 7th of January but for Catholics or Protestants churches celebrate it on the 25th of December. Normally the celebration is attending the mess in the church (24 Dec night or 6 Jan night), then the next day is usually a family day where family gathers for a family lunch or spend the day in a social club, restaurants… youth of the family can hang out with their other family youth members in a cafe or go to the cinema and later meet the Big Family for lunch.
New Year’s Eve Celebrations
When it comes to New Year’s eve celebrations there are endless way to celebrate it that varies from a very expensive outing to simply staying at home and watch TV.
5 stars Hotels usually host Gala Dinners on New Year’s eve. Usually it is a very luxurious dinner, with super stars singers singing in that event. Tickets are usually sold out before.
Pubs and clubs have also arrangements for the new year with special DJs playing in that night.
Restaurants and coffee shops also decorate their places with Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. They can have a special set menu for that day or they will apply a certain minimum charge for orders.
Also people from popular class, make their own parties. You can see beautiful small Felouka (Nile boat) decorated with colored light floats in the Nile with a dancing rhythm and with loud popular songs playing and people dancing in the boat and cheering.
Because it is usually very crowded or very expensive on that day, so you can find that lots of Egyptians prefer to stay at home. They can make a small party at home for friends or just seat and watch TV or movie and enjoy the day with the small family. It can be a movie night (Lucky enough, they may find “Home Alone” in TV, if not than any other Good movie), family all together and enjoying snacks, cupcakes… For lots of Egyptians, the movie “Home Alone” is mainly related to New Year’s Eve as years before it was mostly the only movie broadcasted in the National TV on that day.
Walk Like An Egyptian 