Christmas is twelve days – not one.
By JR Hoeft | Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 | Catch-AllThere is a reason that there is a song called the “Twelve days of Christmas”, that’s because Christmas is actually a religious season and not just a holiday.
Somewhere, Christmas got corrupted into being secularized into a single-day holiday with many people not even celebrating on the actual day it’s religiously recognized: Christmas Day.
There are actually two annoying things going on here, if you are a Christian:
1) The holiday is not being observed on the appropriate day. Celebrating Christmas Eve is like making Easter Saturday the “new Easter”. Should the Easter Bunny suddenly start bringing Easter eggs at 8 p.m. that Saturday? Easter Vigil is cool and should still be observed by churches, just as Christmas Eve is a similar “watch and wait” service: they’re not the festival day though. Speaking of which – how many of you knew that Easter is also a season?
2) Celebrating only on one day is like the secularization of Hannukah or Ramadan. Would the Jewish or Islamic faiths be happy if their 8-day or month-long religious observances were suddenly cut short? Would their religious leaders stand idly by if people started to tinker with the holiday?
So, what am I getting at?
Keep your lights up! Keep up that Christmas tree! Enjoy the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior at least until Epiphany on Jan. 6!
To be fair, if you’re only interested in “The Nativity of our Lord,” that begins Christmas Eve and goes through Christmas Day.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
Comments
6 Responses to "Christmas is twelve days – not one."
Not really a necessary plea, J.R. This is Virginia, who takes their lights down before the end of advent anyway? Hell, a lot of people are doing good if they get them down by Easter.
Some of the hard core Red Necks I know on the South side of VB leave them up all year and use the bulbs for target practice.
Shoot, out here in Suffolk we use Christmas lights in February to help grow our pot(ted) plants. It really works.
Well, for one, Steve, you’d be an idiot to take down your lights during Advent because that is the season of preparing for Christmas. In other words, you’d be taking them down before the actual celebration of Christmas.
Second, there are several folks here in Chesapeake who have already turned off their lights, if not outright pulled them down. It’s a shame.
Third, one of the folks I follow on Twitter made a comment about being anxious to take her Christmas stuff down. It made me sad.
Fourth, at my work, they already pulled down the Christmas paraphernalia and a co-worker explained to me that his drunk relative in Maryland used to go around with wire snips and cut folks’ Christmas lights if they were on post-Dec. 25.
So, despite the wonderful uses that it appears folks still have for Christmas lights in the Commonwealth, let’s attempt to keep it that way before all the Grinches come along.
“a co-worker explained to me that his drunk relative in Maryland used to go around with wire snips and cut folks’ Christmas lights if they were on post-Dec. 25.”
If I found that dude I would beat him with a rubber hose…and no jury would convict me…
our christmas lights this 2010 would be made up from light emitting diodes which does not generates so much heat,.”
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