Behold! 'Christmas Adam' Is Born.

First there was Christmas Eve … and then a new celebration was created.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/us/christmas-adam-dec-23.html

https://archive.ph/GBc0R


Innovation Church in Lafayette, Ind., offers only one holiday service — on Dec. 23, or what is becoming known as Christmas Adam. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

Some 2,000 years ago, on a holy night in Bethlehem as stars were brightly shining, a young woman gave birth to a baby and laid him in a manger. The baby Jesus was a thrill of hope for a weary world, the gospel story goes, and Christians ever since remember his birth in the candlelight of Christmas Eve. Then, much more recently, though no one can seem to recall exactly when or where, came the birth of a new celebration. Adherents call it Christmas Adam. And they celebrate on Dec. 23. Why? They have a universal reply: “Because Adam came before Eve.”

It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Unlike Christmas Eve, Christmas Adam is not part of an official Christian calendar. The Vatican certainly does not recognize it, and many churchgoers have not heard of it. There is not one way to celebrate. But some evangelically minded and social-media-savvy Protestant churches and families have embraced the celebration, making up Christmas Adam traditions as they go, one joke at a time. For some, Christmas Adam is purely a chance to share a clever pun. For others, it is practical way to compete in a crowded holiday season, by offering church services a day before the holiday actually starts.


It’s hard to define Christmas Adam, aside from the date. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

To be clear, the “eve” in Christmas Eve refers to the evening before the holy day. It does not refer to the biblical Eve, whom God formed from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis. Still, this play on words has paved the way for Adam, the first man, to creep into the modern Christmas story. Christmas Adam is just a “silly generic term,” said Rev. Sean G. Morris, 35, of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tenn. “Dec. 24 gets an official title — it gets called Christmas Eve,” he explained. “So what the heck, let’s give December the 23rd a semiofficial imprint as well.”

Mr. Morris, 35, has started his own Christmas Adam ritual. On Dec. 23, he shares a photo of a McDonald’s sandwich, the McRib (rib — get it?), dripping in sauce. Then he downs one. And his children roll their eyes. “It’s become a ridiculous personal tradition of mine,” he said in an interview. “I only eat it one day a year.” Some friends, including fellow pastors in the Presbyterian Church in America, have joined in on the annual pun, he said, much “to the chagrin of our wives.” (The wives do not have their own tradition for Christmas Eve, he said, as they are usually busy wrangling children and finishing last-minute tasks.)

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