As Catholics, we are still bound to abstain from meat each Friday of the entire year, not just in Lent. This is required during the season of Christmas – even on Friday in the Octave of Christmas.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law stipulated that the requirement to abstain from meat (i.e., Friday penance) was required each and every Friday of the year unless that particular Friday was a Holy Day of Obligation:
« On [Sundays] or feasts of precept, the law of abstinence or of abstinence and fast or of fast only ceases, except during Lent, nor is the vigil anticipated; likewise it ceases on Holy [Saturday] afternoon » (1917 Code, Canon 1252 § 4). [Translation taken from THE 1917 OR PIO-BENEDICTINE CODE OF CANON LAW in English Translation by Dr. Edward Peters]
