By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-12-25 19:29:32 | Updated at 2024-12-26 12:33:14
17 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // As the holiday season winds down, many people pack away their Christmas decorations and almost immediately return to the rhythm of everyday life. However, a growing Catholic movement encourages embracing the Christmas spirit well into the New Year, celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas and even continuing festivities until Feb. 2 when the Church celebrates Candlemas..
The tradition of the Twelve Days of Christmas lasts from Jesus’ birth Dec. 25 until the day before the Epiphany Jan. 6. Rather than rushing through the season, those who observe this tradition can engage in activities that deepen their connections with family and faith.
As the Church continues its celebration, it’s a wonderful chance to reflect on the significance of the season, as well as to keep your Christmas decorations up a bit longer.
In a piece written for Crisis Magazine titled “Keeping a Long Christmas,” author and commentator Charles A. Coulombe explained the concept of the “holiday creep,” characterized by society’s attempt to begin the Christmas season as early as Halloween.
This is a sign of more than just a pursuit of profits, according to Coulombe. It reveals a deeper societal longing for connection and nostalgia.
“Certainly, nostalgia is one of the three major elements that should characterize our celebrations,” Coulombe wrote. “But the second is hope for the future, while the third is the perennial and eternal nature of the things we celebrate.”
The celebration of Christmas is actually just as long as society instinctively wants it to be. However, it begins Dec. 25, not as soon as Halloween or Thanksgiving have passed.
In service of having the proper elements characterizing our celebrations, Coulombe offered insights into preserving the feast for after Advent, beginning with simply displaying the Nativity in the home without the Infant Jesus or the Wise Men.
“When Christmas Eve at last arrives, a whole world of celebration opens up — and if we have tried to keep Advent, we shall not find ourselves tired of the feast already, as so many of our secular friends are,” Coulombe wrote.
“But we must try to keep up the jollity through the Twelve Days,” Coulombe emphasized. “The following day, St. Stephen’s Day or Boxing Day should just be the beginning, not the end—with New Year’s Eve and Day halfway points on the road of observance and celebration,” he said.
On Epiphany, or the Twelfth Night of Christmas, the faithful celebrate the visit of the Three Kings to the Infant Jesus.
“Here, too, are innumerable customs to savor across the Catholic world,” Coulombe wrote.
On Feb. 2, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple. This is Candlemas, the official conclusion of the Christmas celebration.
On Candlemas, it is traditional for priests to bless all the candles intended for use throughout the year, including those for homes. In some churches, this blessing includes a candlelight procession, while in others, members of the congregation hold lit candles in their pews.
The glow of candlelight evokes the Christmas celebration, symbolizing how the darkness of sin was dispelled by the light of Christ. Additionally, it serves as an important reminder that despite the lingering dark days of winter, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” (John 1:5).
Coulombe concluded, “[B]y keeping Christmas so well as we can in our homes and families — and even our solitary apartments if we live alone — we can begin to reverse that secularization, which has brought us to the revolting state in which we find ourselves.”
“Moreover,” he wrote, “we can do so through the combination of supernatural faith and innocent joy. Can there be any better weapons, more pleasant to wield?”
