National Football League Christmas games The National Football League occasionally schedules matchups on Christmas , December 25 or Christmas Eve , December 24 . Unlike their November holiday counterparts , the Thanksgiving Classic games , Christmas Day and Christmas Eve games in the National Football League are not a regular annual part of the schedule ; rather , the NFL only schedules a Christmas game on a night when football would be played anyway , and has only scheduled regular season games on Christmas Day since 1989 . Through the 2011 season , there have been 17 Christmas Day contests . In recent years , the NFL has generally scheduled games on Christmas only if it falls on a day normally used for games ( Saturday , Sunday , and Monday ) ; as of yet , it has never scheduled a Christmas or Christmas Eve game on a Thursday , though it has scheduled Christmas games on Friday , which is one of the only times the league ever plays regular - season games on that day of the week due to antitrust restrictions . If Christmas falls on a Sunday , as it did in 1994 and 2005 and will again in 2011 , most of the games will be played on the preceding day ( with no games that night or the following afternoon in deference to the holiday ) , and then one game is scheduled for Christmas Night to be broadcast nationally ( two games were played in 2005 , but only one game will be played in 2011 due to TV contracts ) . One game is generally held over for the regular Monday night slot and one usually having been played on Thursday . There is currently a window , from 9 P . M . local time Christmas Eve to 5 P . M . Eastern Time Christmas Day , where no games are played . In the event that " Monday Night Football " lands on Christmas Eve , the two teams that play will be West Coast teams . History . Early years . Prior to 1970 AFL - NFL Merger , the NFL regular season usually ended in mid - December , with the NFL Championship Game being held on the Sunday two weeks later . If that Sunday fell on Christmas Day December 25 , the league preferred to move it to the following day , Monday , December 26 ; this rescheduling occurred for both the 1955 and the 1960 championship game s . The American Football League compensated differently : the 1960 and 1966 championship games were moved back a full " week " , being played on New Year ' s Day 1961 and 1967 , with Christmas Sunday being an off - week . ( The NFL ' s 1966 championship game was also held on Sunday , January 1 , 1967 , two weeks after the end of the regular season . ) New Year ' s Day was an available day since the college bowl game s would be pushed back until Monday , January 2 in those seasons . 1971 Divisional Playoffs . The first NFL games actually played on December 25 came after the merger , during the 1971 – 72 NFL playoffs . The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round were held on Christmas Day , the first game was between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings and the second of the two contests played that afternoon , the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs , wound up being . because of the length of this game , the NFL received numerous complaints , reportedly due to the fact that it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation . The NFL also came under fire for intruding on a traditional religious and family holiday , and a Kansas state legislator proposed a bill to ban the scheduling of future games on December 25 . As a result , the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day games for the next 17 seasons . Avoiding Christmas . This required considerable effort during those years in which Christmas fell on a Saturday or a Sunday , given that ordinarily those days would be days in which NFL playoff games were to be held . In 1976 , the NFL opened its regular season a week earlier than they would have ordinarily have been the case ( September 12 , the second Sunday of the month , rather than the customary third Sunday ) so that the Divisional Playoffs could be held on December 18 and December 19 instead of December 25 and December 26 , and thus no games would be needed on Saturday , December 25 . In 1977 , with Christmas falling on a Sunday , the Divisional Playoff Games were held around the holiday , with an AFC doubleheader on Saturday , December 24 , and an NFC doubleheader on Monday , December 26 . This was done so that one team didn ' t have a two - day rest advantage over the other for the Conference Championship games ( the NFL only allowed one - day rest advantages ) . The NFL continued to avoid Christmas even after it started to extend the length of the regular season and the playoffs . The league expanded to a 16 - game regular season and a 10 - team playoff tournament in 1978 , but it was not until 1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas . It was originally scheduled to end on Sunday , December 26 of that year , but the regular season was extended to Sunday , January 2 , 1983 after the 57 - day NFL players ' strike reduced the season from 16 games to 9 ; the NFL compensated by extending the regular season one week and eliminating the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl . In 1983 and again in 1988 , the NFL split the first round Wild Card Playoffs between Saturday , December 24 and Monday , December 26 to avoid a Christmas game . The NFL also split them between Saturday and Sunday for different reasons in 1984 ( both venues in the Pacific Time Zone ) and 1985 ( both games at Giants Stadium ) . Regular season contests arrive on Christmas . Finally , in 1989 , the NFL tried another Christmas Day game , the Cincinnati Bengals at the Minnesota Vikings , but it was a 9 p . m . ET " ABC Monday Night Football " contest , thereby avoiding interfering with family dinners . In the years since , the NFL has played an occasional late - afternoon or night game on the holiday , but there has not been a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 5 p . m . ET since 1971 . In 1993 , NBC aired a Christmas game for the first time since 1971 , when the Houston Oilers ( now Tennessee Titans ) visited the San Francisco 49ers , with a kickoff time of 5 PM Eastern / 2 PM Pacific . ESPN aired a Christmas game for the first time ever on December 25 , 1994 , when the Detroit Lions visited the Dolphins . CBS got its first Christmas game since 1971 in 1999 , when the Denver Broncos visited the Lions . Fox aired a Christmas game for the first and only time in 1999 , when the Chicago Bears visited their archrivals the Green Bay Packers . Under current NFL television contracts , neither CBS nor Fox are eligible to air any games on Christmas . The NFL Network aired its first Christmas game in 2009 , when the San Diego Chargers visited the Titans . 2011 and beyond . The most recent Christmas game was held on Sunday , December 25 , 2011 . According to league policy , most of the weekend ' s games were moved to Christmas Eve while one game was set aside for " NBC Sunday Night Football " . That game was played between the Bears and Packers at Green Bay ' s Lambeau Field – the second time that these two teams played at that venue on Christmas . The game took place as planned after the July resolution of an NFL lockout that would have jeopardized the 2011 NFL season . Unlike 2005 , there was not a second Christmas Day game , due to changes in the NFL ' s television contracts since the last time Christmas landed on a Sunday during that year . Under current TV contracts , the only time two games would be played on Christmas would be when it falls on a Monday ( NBC ' s game is moved from Sunday during that weekend which is not included in flexible scheduling , while ESPN would air its regular Monday night game as well ) , as it did in 2006 . Christmas next arrives on a Monday in 2017 ; ESPN will hold rights to the late game due to its renewal of rights through 2021 . Whether or not another network will carry a game is dependent on the details of the most recent contract extension , which runs through 2022 . Only one other team has hosted the same team twice on Christmas over the years – the Arizona Cardinals hosted the Dallas Cowboys on ABC ' s " Monday Night Football " in 1995 , and on the NFL Network in 2010 . However , in this case , each game was played at a different venue – the 1995 game at Sun Devil Stadium ( where the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXX a month later ) , and the 2010 game at University of Phoenix Stadium . Christmas Eve . There have also been several games played on Christmas Eve over the years , the most famous of these being an Oakland Raiders - Baltimore Colts playoff contest in which culminated in a play immortalized as " Ghost to the Post " . These games have typically been played early in the afternoon out of deference to the holiday . If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday ( most recently in ) , then most of the weekend ' s NFL games will be on the afternoon of Christmas Eve , except for a few games played on Thursday , Sunday , or Monday night in the league ' s regular prime - time TV packages . The 2004 season featured a Christmas Eve matchup on Friday afternoon , one of the rare instances when the league has played on Friday . The game ( Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings for the NFC North title ) aired on Fox ; Green Bay defeated Minnesota by a score of 34 – 31 . Prior to that , the last Christmas Eve Friday game was played in when the New Orleans Saints defeated the Dallas Cowboys . In , Christmas Eve landed on a Monday . This proved especially problematic ; the league ' s television contract with ESPN requires the league to provide 17 " Monday Night Football " games over the course of the first 16 weeks of the season ( the league no longer schedules a Monday night game for the final weekend of the season , for multiple reasons ) . In seasons past , the league compensated for an instance like this by giving ESPN or ABC an extra Saturday or Thursday night game later in the season , but this was no longer possible because the new television contract gave the rights to those games to NFL Network . Thus , with the league already stretching its limits by placing a Monday night doubleheader on opening weekend , this meant that every available Monday night would have to air at least one game , even if it were Christmas Eve . To ease the issue , the game was scheduled between two West Coast teams , the Denver Broncos at the San Diego Chargers , so that the game could start at 5 : 00 PM local time . The same scenario is set to occur in . When Christmas Eve falls on a Thursday , as it did in , the " Thursday Night Football " game gets moved to Friday on Christmas . The 2009 game was between the Chargers and the Tennessee Titans in Nashville , with a special start time of 7 : 30 PM Eastern / 6 : 30 PM Central .