The saddest day of each year, for me, is Dec. 26. It seems like many of us work toward, plan or think about Christmas Day for most of the year. Vacations are planned, families schedule get-togethers, plus there's the preparation — baking, shopping, wrapping, composing Christmas letters and addressing cards. And let's not forget decorating our homes, or attending parties, concerts and church functions. We have one joyful day of gift-giving, feasting and enjoying family or friends then, poof, it's all over.
In my opinion, commercialism has dominated how we celebrate Christmas. The Yuletide "season" now begins before Halloween and ends promptly at midnight on Dec. 25 as all things Christmas-related are replaced quickly with Valentine cupids, hearts, candy and flowers.
For centuries, Advent (the four weeks before Christmas) was a month to prepare hearts for the remembrance of Christ's coming to the earth. It was a solemn time in the church where no decoration of any kind was permitted, only songs of preparation were sung, and daily devotionals were read in homes as the Advent wreath candles were lit.
The making of gifts or shopping for them might have occurred before or during Advent but decorating homes didn't happen until close to Christmas. Maybe trees were chopped or bought early but never more than a week before Christmas. In many homes, the Christmas tree wasn't seen until Christmas morning — Santa had miraculously brought it, strung lights around it, decorated it, left gifts under it and gobbled a plateful of cookies on his way back up the chimney.
During the early 1800s, the English Puritans, along with Oliver Cromwell, effectively squelched Christmas over an approximate span of 50 years. It took Queen Victoria's husband, Albert, to introduce some German traditions to revive Christmas joy again. When Charles Dickens introduced "A Christmas Carol" in 1843, it totally revived Christmas as a time to commemorate Christ's birth with a show of goodwill and kindness to all men.
In Christendom, the actual Christmas season was intended to begin on Dec. 25 then last for 12 days when another feast occurred to celebrate the arrival of the Three Wise Men (Epiphany). In early England, the Christmas "season" was one of merriment with parties and feasts every night from Dec. 25 until the sixth of January or Twelfth Night.
I love the idea of "celebrating" Christmas for 12 days but realize the logistics are much too difficult. Families aren't often near enough to celebrate for more than one day. Jobs, bosses, school, schedules and life in general all hinder that sort of thing.
I'm afraid that Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, gets ignored in most places except churches but, even then, it appears that, except for many liturgical denominations, few celebrate Epiphany. Called the Feast of the Epiphany on the liturgical calendar, it marks the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and is said to be the day when the Three Wise Men, or the Three Kings, or the Magi brought Jesus their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the house where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were then living.
When our children were small, we attended Epiphany parties. It was always a potluck meal with the hostess baking what was called a King's Cake. There are many traditional, and complicated, cake recipes but, to simplify things, Betty Crocker assisted. Inside the cake were three "gold" rings; each child who found one got to wear a gold foil crown and become one of "We Three Kings" for the rest of the evening.
For me that was always a fitting end to Christmas and I'm grateful for those memories with my family and close friends. Happy Epiphany to each of you!