Official End of Christmas.

As noted, there are a lot of variations in differing Christian traditions. The Great Schism in which the Roman/Latin/Western church was severed from the Eastern churches resulted in a break of communication so that the traditions are often different between them. Earlier traditions did not necessarily celebrate the Birth of Jesus (on Christmas or any other day), with some traditions celebrating the Epiphany, instead. That celebration maintained in the East long after the West had shifted the primary celebration to Christmas.

Further, the Reformation caused more rifts in the West. In particular, (for English speaking countries), the Puritans stomped out all celebration of Christmas and the various denominations (including the Anglicans) re-established different traditions at different times.

In the Catholic tradition, at least from the late Medieval period, Christmas began on December 25, (prior to that is the season of Advent which is a penitential/preparatory season sort of like “Lent lite”). The Christmas season then extended for forty days until the feast of the Presentation in the Temple. For whatever reason, the practice of blessing candles on that day arose, leading to the (re)naming of that feast and the close of the Christmas season on Candlemas.
A liturgical season determines the colors of the vestments worn and prayers recited at liturgical celebrations, so the Christmas season indicated the period during which the vestments were white and not some other color along with the themes of the prayers.

At some point, the extended Christmas season fell into disuse and the season was shortened to end at the feast of the Epiphany. In very recent years, that feast has been arbitrarily set to the second Sunday following Christmas, regardless on what day January 6 falls. (The denomination that most closely parallels the Catholic calendar is the Anglican Communion, but I do not know how much juggling of their calendar has occurred while Rome moved all their celebrations to convenient Sundays.)

I spent yesterday - Epiphany - taking down my tree and interior decorations. I seemed to be one of the last two or three houses (out of hundreds) in our neighborhood to turn off the outside Christmas lights. But I kept telling everyone that Christmas was not over until Epiphany, I don’t care if the Valentine’s Day cards are already on display!

tom, I think that the Puritan banning of Christmas celebrations in England was a pretty short period of time - only during the Protectorate, and not even for the entire time of the Protectorate. I’ve always viewed that as a bit of blip, not in itself a major impact on the Anglican liturgy. The church under Laud was pretty High, and my recollection is that in the immediate Restoration period, they went back to that approach, as part of the rejection of the Puritans and the Protectorate. So by and large, I wouldn’t have thought that the Puritans had much lasting impact on the church calendar. Maybe Polycarp can comment on this issue? I’m just going by my own recollection and can’t provide a cite at the moment.

Don’t know what the practise is in other parts of the Communion, but the Anglican Church of Canada still keeps the feast days on the original calendar days, not moving them to the nearest Sunday. For example, Epiphany still falls on January 6, according to the Book of Alternative Services.