O come, O come Emmanuel

Midwinter holy days & festivities

circa early December 1996 -- Trust NONE of the links!


I found some explanations of Christmas greens and decorations, an odd lot of English Christmas customs, and Yule, the December festival of the winter solstice (about pre-Christian and non-Christian midwinter traditions).

Here's some background on and thoughts about All Saints to Advent, the holy days from November 1 to the last Sunday before Christmas.

Further on you'll find links I like for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

[joe's left footprint]The day after Thanksgiving 1996

The last of the Thanksgiving feast dishes are being cleaned by our household servant, the Electric Dishwasher, I've had my first post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, and I've listened to both the first household Christmas music of the year (the Penn State Glee Club, P.S. Happy Holidays) and the second (the Boston Camerata, A Medieval Christmas). I think tomorrow will be a good day for gettimg into the box of Christmas decorations, but today is less industrious, better for contemplating the six weeks of midwinter merrymaking ahead.

This year I've been trying to puzzle out the magical atmosphere of the Christmas season. I think it's startling, wonderful, and bittersweet that our entire culture here in the USA (generally speaking) turns itself inside out every year for the span of a few weeks, tucking away the separateness and independence of the rest of the year and instead revealing impulses of love, generosity, and selflessness. At Christmastime we expect each other to be on a search for just the right gift for our loved ones. We spend considerable time and effort to create an especially welcoming home for ourselves, our families, and guests. We cry at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street." We secretly hope that this Christmas, just this once, we'll have the wonderful, magical holiday that we've dreamed of since we were little. We drink in every good and hopeful and delighted moment we find in this season, culminating in Christmas Day.

This turnabout is bittersweet because, come December 26, many of us strip the Christmas decorations from our homes, silence the carols, and focus on after-Christmas sales and how many vacation days remain until we must resume our everyday lives. Twenty-four hours after its peak, Christmas is put away. What a shock! Suddenly all we have to look forward to is the brief festivity of bringing in the New Year, and then a dreary winter stretch until Saint Valentine's Day (interrupted by the Superbowl). What sense is there in this? There must be a better, more satisfying way! (Hint: there is.)

Traditions of midwinter celebration reach back a hundred years, five hundred years, a thousand years, two thousand, and probably much farther. We have been making merry and feasting in midwinter for a very long time. For maybe a thousand years in the northern hemisphere the commemoration of the Christ child has been matched with these festive days. I believe that the wonder and magic of this time of year are one way God expresses his love for us, helping us love each other and touching us all with the scent of heaven. I think we all could find joy in midwinter celebrations that spill beyond these two weeks in late December.

A few years ago I discovered the anticipatory weeks of Advent, and the traditional twelve days of Christmas which begin with Christmas Day and continue through Twelfth Night, January 5. The next day--January 6--is Epiphany, the day the Christian churches remember the arrival of the kings, or magi, bearing their gifts for the Christ child. It's a good day to take down the Christmas tree. Although many people think I'm a bit odd, during this traditional Christmas season I enjoy as many Christmas carols and songs as possible, and I turn off the room lights every evening to fill my eyes with the sparkle of the lights on our Christmas tree and in our windows, savoring this magical season. This year we're having a Twelfth Night party. Why not? All the parties will have been held between December 7 (let's say) and December 31 (of course!); once January arrives people aren't rushed any longer and they welcome a party. It fits very well with my Christmas season effort. And our home is still decorated! I might or might not follow the French tradition of baking a cake with a bean in it, and crowning whoever finds it queen or king of the party.

A holy Advent, a blessed and merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year to you and your loved ones.

~ Barbara

Would you like to read our Christmas greeting and poem? We send something like this every year to our friends and family.

joe's left footprintAdvent

 December 1 - 22, 1996

Lectionary readings, Season of Advent 1996 Traditional Bible readings for these days

Most of us make or buy Christmas gifts, decorate our homes, make goodies, and both go to and throw parties in these three to four weeks before Christmas Day. The Christian liturgical season of Advent begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, and traditionally is a season of anticipation and expectation, when we make preparations to welcome Christ at Christmas. We can focus on three ways he comes to us: long ago, as God incarnate in the baby Jesus in Bethlehem; today, in our lives and our hearts, to awaken us to Life; and someday, as Christ triumphant, redeeming the entire world and bringing history to a close.

joe's left footprintChristmas

 All twelve days!
December 25, 1996 - January 5, 1997

Lectionary readings, Season of Christmas 1996-97 Traditional Bible readings for these days

The celebration begins! Traditionally the church observance of Christmas and any other holy day could begin at sunset the previous evening, so now many folks go to mass or other church services on Christmas Eve as well as perhaps Christmas Day. In the Christian traditions of Christmas there's an element of remembering the tiny newborn baby we name Jesus, as well as acknowledging the amazing honor of God becoming incarnate, living among us as a human being, all leavened with knowledge of the sorrow that would come later, at the Crucifixion. My husband and I will also celebrate and remember our own joyful event: the birth of our son last year on the second day of Christmas.

By the way, I no longer mutter when I see "Xmas," now that I know that the Greek letter chi, which looks very much like a capital letter X, has been used for centuries to represent the name Christ.

joe's left footprintThe New Year

 January 1, 1997

Our tradition is to bang pots and pans outside our door at midnight, and, if your sweetheart is nearby, a kiss. I think the root of the noisemaking is to scare away bad spirits or bad luck as the new year begins, a magical and mysterious time.

joe's left footprintEpiphany

 January 6 - February 11, 1997

Lectionary readings, season of Epiphany 1997 Traditional Bible readings for these days

Epiphany is often thought of as the feast of the three kings. It's the beginning of a different liturgical season (the "Season after Epiphany") that ends the night before Ash Wednesday, which itself is the beginning of Lent and is forty non-Sundays before the date of Easter each year (got that?).


In Praise of Snow I just had to include this link!


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This page was created 23 November 1996.
Last modified 29 December 2003.

Copyright © 1996-2003 Barbara K. Laufersweiler.