I'm going to confess that one of my favorite times of the year is the week between Christmas and New Year's. The fevered pitch of holiday celebration gives way to a quieter time to reflect on the year that has passed. The irony is that it's actually supposed to be the time of celebration, not quiet.
You see, the Christian calendar begins a season with the holiday. The Christmas season begins with Christmas. In secular society, however, the season begins in… well …October. By the afternoon of December 25th, the season is done. On to New Year's.
For a lot of Europe, however, Christmas is part of a slew of holidays that included St. Nicholas Day or St. Lucia's day in Sweden. Those additional holidays got folded into the larger celebration of Christmas so it is hard to tell where the season began or ended.