It will be Christmas first on the islands of Kiribati , specifically Kiritimati (also called Christmas Island) in the far eastern Pacific, because they sit in the world’s earliest time zone, UTC+14.

Where Christmas arrives first

  • Kiribati’s Line Islands, including Kiritimati, use UTC+14, which is the earliest time zone on Earth.
  • Midnight on 25 December reaches UTC+14 before any other region, so their Christmas Day begins while much of the world is still on 24 December.

Who follows after Kiribati

  • After Kiritimati, Christmas reaches places like New Zealand’s Chatham Islands, mainland New Zealand, and Fiji, which are in nearby early time zones (around UTC+12 to UTC+12:45).
  • Over the next many hours, the ā€œwaveā€ of midnight moves westward through Asia, Europe, Africa, and finally the Americas, with regions like Hawaii among the last to reach Christmas Day.

In simple terms: Christmas starts on Kiritimati in Kiribati, then rolls across the globe time zone by time zone, so everyone celebrates on 25 December but not at the same moment.

TL;DR: The answer to ā€œwhere will it be Christmas firstā€ is Kiribati’s Kiritimati Island in the UTC+14 time zone.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.