yuletide

1. (dated) The period around Christmas; the Christmas season, Christmastime; specifically, Christmas itself.Examples: "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, / Fa la la la la la la la la! / 'Tis the season to be jolly, / Fa la la la la la la la la! / Don we now our gay apparel, / Fa la la la la la la la la! / Troll the ancient yuletide carol, / Fa la la la la la la la la!"; "What did the first locked drawer contain? […] a Yuletide card, bearing on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah, the date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr and Mrs M. Comerford, the versicle: May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome glee: […]"; "It's Christmas at ground zero / Just seconds left to go / I'll duck and cover / With my Yuletide lover / Underneath the mistletoe"Synonyms: Christmastidecountabledateduncountable

2. (dated, or Germanic Neo-Paganism) The period of celebration of a pre-Christian festival associated with the (northern) winter solstice, later absorbed into the festival of Christmas (but sometimes recreated by modern neo-pagans).Examples: "For this is the Yuletide, and the heathen people of the forest are gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to worship their god, Thor."; "It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten."countabledateduncountable

3. (Australia, regional) The period of southern winter in the middle of the year, sometimes celebrated in the colder, snowy regions of Australia with allusions to Christmas, which originated as a marketing gimmick.Examples: "Note that the colder winter months (June–Aug) are the busiest season. This period is known as Yuletide—the locals' version of the Christmas period, when most places offer traditional Christmas dinners and roaring log fires."Australiacountableregionaluncountable