Christmas in Mizoram

The clearest example in India of a pan-Indian festival taking a wholly local form — Christianity arrived with Welsh Presbyterian and Baptist missionaries and reorganised the Mizo year around it.

The birth of Christ. It belongs on a list of Mizo festivals because here it is not a minority observance — at the 2011 census 87.16 per cent of the state's population was Christian.

Christmas Eve begins it, with youth groups and church bands moving through the neighbourhoods singing Mizo carols. The 25th brings denominational services and lengkhawm congregational singing. The communal meal comes the day after.

Carol singing through the localities on Christmas Eve, services and lengkhawm on the 25th, and the ruai communal meal on the 26th.

The Nativity, kept in Mizo language and Mizo song rather than in imported forms.

Welsh Presbyterian and Baptist missionaries brought Christianity to the Lushai Hills from the 1890s, and within a century it had become near-universal and had reshaped the festival calendar.