The Real Twelve Days of Christmas

We've allowed and adjusted to the retail markets setting the date for the beginning of Christmas in the time of now.

Sometime in November the stores are all decorated and the streets are lit-up and the TV is constantly telling us that "The Season" has begun and we must hurry hurry to get it all done before the...25th?

The real Christian celebration of Christmas is exactly the opposite. The season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and for nearly a month Christians await the coming of Christ in a spirit of expectation, singing hymns of longing. Then, on December 25, Christmas Day itself ushers in twelve days of celebration, ending only on January 6 with the feast of the Epiphany.

The "real" twelve days of Christmas are important not just as a way of refusing to accept the secular ideas of the "Christmas season." They are important because they give us a way of reflecting on what the Incarnation means in our lives. Christmas commemorates the most momentous event in human history—the entry of God into the world He made, in the form of a baby. One of the prayers for Christmas Day in the Catholic liturgy encapsulates what Christmas means for all believers: "O God, who marvelously created and yet more marvelously restored the dignity of human nature, grant that we may share the divinity of Him who humbled himself to share our humanity." In Christ, our human nature was united to God, and when Christ enters our hearts, he brings us into that union.

I wish you joy and blessings ~

Bea Kunz