It is frequently asked as to why Armenians do not celebrate Christmas on December 25th with the rest of the world. Obviously, the exact date of Christ's birth has not been historically established-it is neither recorded in the Gospels. However, historically, all Christian churches celebrated Christ's birth on January 6th until the fourth century.

According to Roman Catholic sources, the date was changed from January 6th to December 25th in order to override a pagan feast dedicated to the birth of the Sun which was celebrated on December 25th. At the time Christians used to continue their observance of these pagan festivities. In order to undermine and subdue this pagan practice, the church hierarchy designated December 25th as the official date of Christmas and January 6th as the feast of Epiphany. However, Armenia was not effected by this change for the simple fact that there were no such pagan practices in Armenia, on that date, and the fact that the Armenian Church was not a satellite of the Roman Church. Thus, remaining faithful to the traditions of their forefathers, Armenians have continued to celebrate Christmas on January 6th until today.

People visit each other’s houses during the whole week. There is even a special chronological order of visiting houses. Everything starts with the most honorable people. For example, a person always visits his/her parents’ house the first, godfathers/godmothers come the second and so on.
The country that has a special guest-host tradition, of course, also has special dishes for New Year’s table like a party. There are some must-have dishes and delicacies that have symbolic significance for Armenian families.

Guests cannot leave the table with the feeling of hunger, because, as a rule, they should eat everything that housewives offer, otherwise they will be offended.