The second sentence mentions the 3 western
leaders' inability to say, "Merry Christmas", which they
normally would say on December 25th.
However, the first sentence can be a
reference to Christmas from either the catholic
perspective, December 25th, or from Russia's perspective.
In Russia, there are still a couple of
ways to consider this.
The orthodox church, which came back to
influence after the fall of communism, there, celebrates
Christmas on Jan 7th.
That was due to the orthodox &
catholic usage of either the Julian or Gregorian
calendars.
However, during the reign of communism,
the Soviet Union actually allowed some Christmas
traditions to be celebrated on New Year's.
About 90 years ago, Stalin was told that
the Christmas traditions were pagan anyway, and had
nothing really to do with Jesus, so he allowed them.
Back when I worked in the Soviet Union in
the early 80's, I saw these celebrations carried out in a
large way, on New Year's Eve.
The signs & banners said,"С новым годом!", there were many ice
sculptures, and they put up the decorated trees, just like
catholic Christmas trees.
They would put up a big
one, outside, where many people would gather around the
ice sculptures and the tree, to celebrate all night.
Instead of Santa Claus,
they had their own, "Дед Мороз", pronounced, oddly enough,
like we would pronounce the two English words, "dead
morose".
One year I was tapped to
play, "Дед Мороз", for the children, but I was
much younger & thinner then, and I had a distinctly
American accent.
If I remember correctly,
it was a blue costume that they had for "father frost", at
least where I was at.
So, couched in a bit of
enigma, it may be prudent to be ready against December
25th, New Year's, and January 7th.
.