The author’s family Christmas tree, still up on Dec. 26! (Photo: Anna Weaver)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
I’ll admit, seasonal creep has been creeping up on me despite my best intentions. While I write this just before Thanksgiving, I still have fall decorations up and they’ll stay up through Turkey Day. But I’m well into Christmas gift shopping, I have my Christmas cards, and I have purchased some new Jesse tree ornaments and St. Nicholas Day and Epiphany gifts for my kids.
While we don’t put up our tree or Advent/Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving at the earliest, I don’t have a problem with people decorating for Christmas in November. What I do find more troubling is when people eagerly wipe away all traces of Christmas shortly after Christmas Day.
As Catholics, we have extra reason to celebrate the season of Christmas. In fact, some traditionalists won’t even put up their Christmas tree until Christmas Eve or give out presents until Epiphany. There are 12 days of Christmas after all and many feasts during the “Christmas octave” that lead up to and beyond Epiphany.
So here are some ideas to slow down the season to avoid Christmas burnout come Dec. 26.
Don’t forget to savor and celebrate Advent! Light an Advent wreath each night. Put up an Advent calendar with pockets full of age-appropriate items: short prayers, little saint keychains, “gratitude” and “do good” notes, food treats, Nativity figures, etc. Decorate a Jesse tree and mark the O Antiphons.
Come Dec. 25, switch your Advent wreath candles from pink and purple to all-white ones to celebrate the Christmas season! If your fresh Christmas tree is brown and brittle by Christmas day, take it down but leave up your other decorations a little longer.
Mark the special feasts during the Christmas octave and Christmas season: the feast of St. Stephen (Dec. 26); the feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist (Dec. 27); the Feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28); the feast of the Holy Family; St. Thomas Becket, or the prophet Simeon (Dec. 29); and the prophetess Anna (Dec. 30); St. Sylvester (Dec. 31); the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Jan. 1).
Celebrate Epiphany. I like to make sure the magi in our Nativity set keep moving closer to the manger over the days of Advent and Christmas and don’t arrive until Epiphany. This past Epiphany, I made a simple cake with a bean hidden in it for some lucky family member to find according to the Three Kings Cake tradition. We also made paper crowns for everyone to wear while we had our dessert.
There’s more! The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is on the Sunday after Epiphany. And Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, falls on Feb. 2 and is really as far as you can stretch the official Christmas liturgical season.
So remember, if come Christmas Day you’re “tired” of Christmas, you’re doing it wrong! Christmas has just come.
Anna Weaver is the associate editor of the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
