 Christmas and holidays season, the Christmas season, also called the festive season, or the holidays season mainly in the US and Canada, often simply called the holidaysque is an annually recurrent period recognized in many western and western influence countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January. It is defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals. It also is associated with a period of shopping which comprises a peak season for the retail sector the Christmas or holidays shopping season and a period of sales at the end of the season the January sales. Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies when trees decorated with ornaments and light bulbs are illuminated, are traditions in many areas. In the denominations of western Christianity, the term Christmas season is considered synonymous with Christmas tide, a term associated with Eul tide, which runs from December 25 Christmas day to January 5 Epiphany Eve popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas. However, as the economic impact involving the anticipatory bleed up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term Christmas season began to become synonymous instead with the traditional Christian Advent season, the period observed in western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until Christmas Day itself. The term Advent calendar survives in secular western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December, beginning in the mid 20th century, as the Christian associated Christmas holiday became increasingly secularized and central to American economics and culture while religion or multicultural sensitivity rose. Generic references to the season that omitted the word Christmas became more common in the corporate and public sphere of the United States, which has caused a semantics controversy that continues to the present. By the late 20th century, the Jewish holiday of Conica and the new African American cultural holiday of Kwanzaa began to be considered in the U.S. as being part of the holiday season the term that acts of 2013 has become equally or more prevalent than Christmas season in U.S., sources to refer to the end of the year felstice period. Today's season has also spread in carrying degrees to Canada, however, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the phrase holiday season does not widely synonymous with the Christmas New Year period, and is often instead associated with summer holidays.