Merry Christmas! Our family celebrates Christmas for twelve days, starting on December 25th and ending on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany. I suppose that there are actually thirteen days, but Christmas day doesn’t count in that number. For so many people Christmas celebrations have been going on for a whole month, or longer, and so it is understandable that people are ready to put away the Christmas decorations, stop the caroling and sweep up those last crumbs of Christmas evidence off the floor. Goodness, I would be ready to hurl my tree out the door if I had started celebrating Christmas in November!
But our family is a little different, we have been keeping Advent the for the last four weeks. We have been waiting and preparing for the arrival of Christmas for what seems like so long that it would be a great shame to stop the celebrations after just one day. A twelve day Christmas celebration is fabulous for us. It means that there is no pressure to do everything perfectly on Christmas day. It is completely acceptable to have a nap in the afternoon on Christmas day while you wait for guests to arrive and to temporarily put on hold decorating those sugar cookies with your children. After all I still have twelve days left (well closer to eleven now) for sending gifts, singing carols and decorating cookies. When everything isn’t hinged on a singular day I feel like I can relax and more fully enjoy this special season. So if Christmas day was not everything you hoped it would be, perhaps you can find comfort in knowing that there is still plenty of time for all those fun Christmas family traditions.