Key facts
- Pakistani Christians often call Christmas Bara Din, “the great day”.
- 25 December is a national holiday (Christmas and Quaid-e-Azam Day), and the 2026 federal holiday list gives Christians 26 December off as well.
- Key traditions include midnight Mass, door-to-door carol parties with dholak and harmonium, stars on rooftops, new clothes and Christmas cake shared with neighbours.
- Governments often pay December salaries and pensions early to Christian employees so families can prepare.
- Churches celebrate under heavy police security, and public Christmas displays now appear in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
For Christians in Pakistan, Christmas is the biggest celebration of the year. It is a religious festival centred on church, and also a family and neighbourhood event that fills streets in Christian areas of Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and hundreds of Punjabi villages with lights, music and visitors.
This guide explains how Christmas is celebrated in Pakistan: the name, the holidays, the church services, the carols, the food and decorations, and how the wider country takes part.
What is Bara Din?
Many Pakistani Christians call Christmas Bara Din, which means “the great day” in Urdu and Punjabi. AsiaNews, describing the festival in Pakistan, notes that on Bara Din people put on their best clothes and go visiting, so the day is as much about relatives and neighbours as it is about the church service.
The season starts well before 25 December. According to an Express Tribune essay by Peter Jacob, carol groups begin rehearsing in November, singing peaks on 24 and 25 December, and the festive mood carries on until around 7 January.
Is Christmas a public holiday in Pakistan?
Yes. 25 December is a national holiday in Pakistan for two reasons at once: it is Christmas, and it is Quaid-e-Azam Day, the birthday of the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was born on 25 December 1876.
In its list of public holidays for 2026, announced in January, the federal government set 25 December as a holiday for Quaid-e-Azam Day and Christmas, and 26 December as an additional holiday for Christians only, Business Recorder reported. This gives Christian families two days to celebrate and travel to relatives.
Early salaries and pensions before Christmas
A practical tradition that matters to many families is the early payment of wages. In December 2025, the federal Finance Ministry instructed the Controller General of Accounts to pay December salaries and pensions to Christian federal employees and pensioners on 22 December, ahead of the usual date, according to Business Recorder.
For households on modest incomes, an early salary is what pays for new clothes, gifts and Christmas food.
Midnight Mass and Christmas services
Church is the centre of the celebration. Churches are typically full for midnight services on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas morning.
In Karachi, Dawn reported that the bilingual midnight Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 2024 drew the largest congregation of the season, with further Masses on Christmas Day in English and Urdu. Other churches across the city held services in English, Urdu and Punjabi, choirs sang carols in several languages, and nativity scenes were re-enacted in churches. Cardinal Joseph Coutts lit a 52-foot Christmas tree.
Our guide to famous churches in Pakistan covers St Patrick’s and other historic cathedrals where these services take place.
Carol parties: how Pakistani Christians sing carols
Carol singing is one of the most distinctive Pakistani Christmas traditions. According to the Express Tribune, carols are sung mostly in Urdu, Punjabi and Parkari, a language spoken by communities in Sindh.
In the days before Christmas, groups of around a dozen young people, known as carol parties, go from house to house singing with a dholak (hand drum) and a harmonium. Households welcome them in and thank them with a gift in cash or kind. The same source notes that about 50 Christian-majority villages in Punjab hold carol competitions, turning the tradition into a friendly contest between communities.
Decorations, new clothes and gifts
Christian homes and neighbourhoods are decorated in the weeks before Christmas. Common decorations include:
- Stars on rooftops. Multicoloured stars are hung on rooftops of Christian homes.
- Christmas trees and lights in homes and churches.
- New clothes, especially for children, worn to church on Christmas morning.
- Mehndi and bangles. AsiaNews notes that women apply mehndi (henna), and men often give glass bangles to women in the family.
Schools also stage nativity plays, AsiaNews notes, so children grow up acting out the Christmas story as well as hearing it in church.
Christmas food: cake comes first
If one food defines Christmas in Pakistan, it is cake. Bakeries around Karachi’s Saddar area are known for plum cakes at Christmas, and Dawn reports that families share cakes with neighbours of other faiths.
In Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the Express Tribune reported that bakery cake sales surged in December 2025 and peaked on Christmas Eve, with smaller cakes selling for about Rs1,000 to Rs1,500 and premium cakes for Rs3,000 to Rs3,500. Families also prepare festive meals and sweets for guests who visit through the day.
Christmas in Pakistan’s cities
Christmas is increasingly visible in public spaces as well as in Christian neighbourhoods.
| City | Examples reported in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Lahore | A 42-foot Christmas tree at Liberty Chowk and lit trees along Gulberg Main Boulevard, set up by the Punjab government (Dawn) |
| Karachi | Large stars hung in Bohri Bazaar and stalls selling ornaments and costumes (Dawn) |
| Islamabad | Christmas stalls in Kohsar Market and G-7, and a charity Christmas market with carols (Dawn) |
| Rawalpindi and Islamabad | Bakery cake sales peaking on Christmas Eve (Express Tribune) |
Churches also take the message of Christmas onto the streets. In 2025, Dawn’s coverage showed shoppers crowding Lahore’s Ganpat Road in the run-up to the day, a peace rally setting out from Sacred Heart Cathedral in Lahore, and a “Christmas Aman Rally” (aman means peace) organised by the United Council of Churches in Islamabad.
Leaders also take part. The Express Tribune reported that Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah cut a Christmas cake at CM House in 2025.
Security at churches during Christmas
Because churches in Pakistan have been targeted in the past, Christmas services take place under tight security. For Christmas and Quaid-e-Azam Day in 2025, Islamabad police deployed more than 3,500 officers and Rawalpindi police more than 5,600, with checkpoints at 57 locations and searches at church entrances, the Express Tribune reported. The Sindh government arranged special security for churches in 2024, according to Dawn. For worshippers, these checks are now a normal part of going to church at Christmas.
Why Christmas matters to Pakistan’s Christian community
Christmas brings together faith, family and community identity for Pakistan’s roughly 3.3 million Christians, whom we profile in our article on the Christian population in Pakistan. It is also a busy season for small businesses run by Christians, from home bakers to tailors and decorators.
How CSIF connects to Christmas
The Christmas season shows how much small enterprise already happens in Christian homes: cakes baked for neighbours, clothes stitched for families and decorations made by hand. CSIF’s Christian Women Entrepreneurs program helps women in Rawalpindi and Islamabad turn skills like these into sustainable businesses, with training in digital tools, pricing and selling online. Churches, donors and companies abroad who want to support Christian families in Pakistan beyond the festive season can partner with us.
