Christmas Eve, December 24 or January 6, is the night before Christmas Day, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas Eve is seen as the night when Santa claus (or some variant thereof) makes his rounds delivering gifts to good children.

In the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary, where St. Nicholas (sveti Mikuláš) gives his sweet gifts on December 6, the Christmas gift-giver is the Child Jesus (Ježíšek in Czech,Jézuska in Hungarian and Ježiško in Slovakia), also known to most as Christkind. In Argentina, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Quebec, Romania, Uruguay and Sweden, Christmas presents are opened mostly on the evening of the 24th, - this is also the tradition among the British Royal Family, due to their mainly German ancestry - while in Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, English Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia mostly on the morning of Christmas Day. In Finland Joulupukki and in Sweden Jultomten personally meets children and gives presents in the evening of Christmas Eve. In most parts of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland Christmas presents are opened in the evening of December 24th ('Bescherung') and are brought by Christkind or Christchild (or alternatively by the Weihnachtsmann), who leaves the gifts,such as the decoration or candy but is never seen doing so. In Spain gifts are traditionally opened on the morning of January 6, Epiphany day ("Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos"), though in some other countries, like Argentina and Uruguay people received presents both around Christmas and on the morning of Epiphany day; there are also some countries, like the rest of Latin America, where people stay awake until midnight, when they open the presents. In the Netherlands gift giving on Christmas day is a fairly new phenomenon, because of the Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas on December 5th.