Every year there’s a minor struggle in our house about when to start setting up the decorations for Christmas. I’m sure everyone would like it all to start the day after Thanksgiving… maybe even during Thanksgiving preparations? I know they’re listening to Christmas music behind my back. I’m increasingly the lone holdout, insisting that we wait. Why? Well because Advent is still a thing but also because Christmas, I mean real Christmas is so long! You’ve heard about the twelve days of Christmas, but it’s actually much longer. Here’s a bit of history.
Christmastide, or the liturgical season of Christmas, starts on Christmas Eve, of course. Like Easter, Christmas day has an octave attached to it. This means eight days where every day is like a little Christmas itself, so that we can celebrate Christmas again and again. All the Masses, though they might be for the Feast of St. Stephen or of St. John (see my post on that feast here), still include references to Christmas and the Gloria. That eighth day of the octave is January 1, the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. It’s also the day that Mary and Joseph would have taken the baby Jesus to be circumcised, which is why the feast used to be referred to that way. But Christmas is not over yet, so don’t take down your decorations!
Traditionally, Christmas extends to the twelfth day, which for Western Christians is the Solemnity of the Epiphany. Unfortunately, in the U.S. that feast has been transferred to the Sunday between January 2 and January 8 which this year (2025) is January 5. As a result, most American Catholics don’t treat that day with a lot of fanfare. For most of us, it’s just another Sunday. But in many parts of the Catholic world, the solemnity is always on the twelfth day after Christmas or January 6, and it’s a big party.
The word “epiphany” means “manifestation” or “appearance” and commemorates the visit of the Magi. It is the day that all of humanity, represented by the wise men from far distant lands, is told that salvation is available to everyone. The appearance of our savior in Judea is the best news; so, during those twelve days, Christians would exchange gifts for every day, not just on Christmas, hence the famous song about true love and gold rings. Different European cultures have different traditions, but generally Epiphany is considered a major holiday. But wait, there’s more.
The liturgical season of Christmas still continues until the Baptism of Jesus by St. John the Baptist, the Sunday after the Epiphany, which this year is on January 12. It’s still Christmastide, you need not take your Christmas decorations down before this.
So that’s it, right? Well, Ordinary Time does start at this point, but traditions are beautiful things if you want to keep the festive spirit alive. You see, in the West, Christians have celebrated Christmas for forty days to the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or February 2, the day we commemorate Mary and Joseph taking the baby Jesus all the way to the Temple in Jerusalem. According to Jewish law, a first-born son was to be taken to the Temple on the fortieth day after his birth to be dedicated to the Lord. In St. Luke’s Gospel, this is when the Holy Family would have met Simeon and Anna the prophetess. It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would witness the Messiah’s coming before he died. And when he met the baby Jesus, he knew right away this was the salvation that the world had awaited. And so he said that he could now die “for my eyes have seen your salvation… a light for revelation to the Gentiles….” (see Luke 2:22ff). That last bit about “a light for revelation” is why the Church blesses the candles to be used in sacred liturgies on that day and why the Mass for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is referred to as Candlemas.
So, you can leave your Christmas stuff out all the way to February 2, and if people give you a hard time, just tell them that you’re following the traditional celebration of Christmas and to get off your back... in all Christian charity of course.
Now, if we could only get the Boy Scouts to collect trees all the way to February 3…
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