We’ve all heard “The Twelve Days of Christmas” ringing through the aisles of stores this time of year, but did you know this song is based on the centuries-old Christian tradition of Christmastide?
While our culture has taken to celebrating the Christmas season between Thanksgiving (or even Halloween) and December 25th, the Christmas season is only just beginning on Christmas Day and ends with the Eve of the Epiphany January 5th. Having used the Advent season to prepare for Jesus’ coming anew into our hearts, these 12 days are a special time for the church to joyfully and reverently celebrate the incarnation and birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Celebrating the fullness of Christmastide provides the opportunity to prayerfully delight in the true meaning of the season apart from all the cacophonic hustle and bustle so common beforehand. It’s also a way we, as Christians, can serve as a reminder to secular culture that this season is primarily about Jesus and the Church He left us, not presents and other secular traditions stripped of religious meaning.
As we’ve recently seen with the attack on Christmas and on our faith by The Satanic Temple in Concord, if we conform to the world and don’t go out of our way to keep Christ at the center of this season, Christians’ presence in the public square will be further diminished along with the sacred meaning of this holy celebration.
So, before December 25th, put up a Keep Christ In Christmas yard sign or bumper sticker, encourage Christian businesses to dress their windows with Nativity Scenes, or apply for a permit through a local group like Rotary to have a public Christian Christmas display in your city or town. Religious Christmas music is another meaningful way to remind ourselves and others of the miraculous incarnation of the Lord.
Then, keep up your nativity and Christmas tree (if it’s not a fire hazard), continue to say “Merry Christmas,” sing carols, send cards, give gifts, and carry the Christmastide spirit through the Eve of the Epiphany on January 5th!
