There 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.
