Festive means cheerful and suited to a celebration. A festive mood, the festive season, festive decorations.
The festive season is the British way of saying Christmas without saying Christmas, which is either tact or evasion depending on who is asked. The word is a relative of feast and festival.
1adjectivefestiveCheerful and suited to a celebration.
“The streets looked festive with coloured lights and decorations everywhere.”
festive is a quality.
Latin festivus means of a feast, from festum, a feast.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Latin
festivus — pertaining to a feast, gay, lively, joyous
French
festif
English, today
festive
From French festif, from Latin festivus (“pertaining to a feast, gay, lively, joyous”). Equivalent to feast + -ive.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA