The Twelve(ish) Days of Christmas
The rest of the world thinks Christmas is over, with the possible exception of those who celebrate Boxing Day today or those fond of partridges in pear trees.
Oh, how wrong they are!
For like Easter, Christmas isn’t just one day, but a whole season! It continues from Christmas Day through the Epiphany (January 6). In some places, this season is called Christmastide or Yuletide or even the Twelve Days of Christmas.
But of course, it’s more complicated than that! You can’t have 2,000 years of people mucking around with the calendar and expect to have everything so nice and neat.
Since the calendar reforms of 1970, Ephiphany is celebrated in some places (including the United States) on the Sunday after January 1, and the Christmas Season continues until the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls on the Sunday following the Epiphany, or on the Monday following the Epiphany if the Epiphany is moved to January 7 or 8.
This means the “twelve days of Christmas” can run for anywhere from 16 to 22 days.
Dizzy yet? We’re hardly started!
In addition to being a day and a season, Christmas also has an Octave. This is the ancient tradition of the Church to add an entire week to the day that is Christmas, making it actually eight days long.
So “Christmas” is a day, an Octave and a Season, making it one, eight, or twelve(ish) days long depending on which one you are talking about. Got that?
But wait! There’s more!
In older traditions (which are still kept in the liturgical calendar of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass) Christmas lasted until Candle-mas, or the Feast of the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of the Lord, which isn’t until February 2nd. This marked the end of a long 40 day “Christmastide” that corresponded to the 40 days of Lent.
On February 2nd the Church celebrates the day that Mary entered the temple with the Child Jesus when her days of purification after giving birth were fulfilled (according to the Mosaic law) and when Simeon made his well-known prophecy about Mary and the Child. It is called “Candle-mas” because of Simeon’s prophecy of Jesus being a light for the Gentiles.
(source)
The martyrdom of St Stephen,
from the Bedford Hours, ca. 1430
Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, a Deacon and the first martyr of the Church. His story is told in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7.
Tomorrow is the Feast of Saint John, apostle and evangelist, which I personally celebrate as my name day since I took him as my patron saint at my Confirmation.
Sunday the 28th is the Feast of The Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (always the Sunday in the Octave, unless there isn’t one, in which case it’s the 30th). This year this feast trumps the Feast of The Holy Innocents, the children of Bethlehem killed by King Herod, which is normally on the 28th.
The 29th is the Memorial of Saint Thomas Becket. I’ve written elsewhere of Saint Thomas, whom I have always admired. I rather impishly celebrate this as my name day as well, since my first name is Thomas.
The 31st is the Memorial of Saint Sylvester I, who was Pope from 314 to 335. Sylvester is credited with helping develop the Roman liturgy, establishing the Roman school of singing, and commissioning the first martyrology – the list of Roman martyrs.
The 1st of January is the great Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
The 2nd is the Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, bishops and doctors of the Church. These are two of the great Eastern theologians of the early Church.
At this point, we run out of feasts for a bit, probably to get us ready for the Epiphany of the Lord on the 6th – or in 2016, on the 3rd.
That’s a whole lot of feasts! No wonder people gain so much weight at Christmas…
For today, however, I’ll just leave you with a song appropriate to today’s feast of Saint Stephen.
The thought occurred to me when I heard this song last night that this song takes place “on the Feast of Stephen” as a very direct allusion to the charism of diakonia.
Looks like it’s even more complicated!