As some of you already know - and the rest are about to find out, and would have somewhat sooner if I hadn't interrupted with this - MY WIFE and I celebrate Christmas on January 6th.
"January 6th? Why is that?", some of you say.
"Because we are traditionalists," we reply.
January 6th, otherwise known as Little Christmas or Epiphany, is the date given, in some Christian tradition, as the day the Three Wise Men (or Three Kings, or Magi) visited the infant Jesus and presented their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
(I assume Mary and Joseph appreciated the thought, and maybe especially the gold, but what an infant would do with such things is beyond me.)
Aside from historicity, celebrating on January 6th allows us to reserve our holiday best for other relatives and friends on or around December 25th. We are less harried and hurried during the days when most Americans are collapsing from fatigue. We have a spectacularly relaxed personal celebration on the 6th, reserved exclusively for the two of us.
(For those with an eye for bargains, it also allows one to pick up various Christmassy doo-dads and ephemera at cut-rate prices. Stores remove all vestiges of commercial xmas* trappings immediately after the 24th, moving on to Valentines Day and other more profit-driven concerns. That's not a huge incentive for us to celebrate 'late', but it is there and may be of use to you, if you wish.)
Our celebration may end up being a bit less than usual. With the huge snowstorm that hit the Boston area on Thursday, travel is a little harder. Roddy The Wondercar sits at the far end of our 70-foot-or-so driveway, which we share with our upstairs neighbors who have two cars, and there is much snow and other autos between him and freedom, so we may not get to go out to dinner for Little Christmas as we like to do. Oh, well. There are worse things that could be happening.
Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!
Soon, with more better stuff.
* I refuse to capitalize something that has nothing to do with the true spirit of the holiday.
[Illustrations from http://www.hzmre.com/holidays/adventtable.htm]
12 comments:
And to you and your Lovely Wife as well !!!
* Amen and Amen !!!!! Linda in TN.
I can’t bring myself to even use the commercial abbreviation.
It seems so wrong, like saying Frisco instead of San Francisco or Cali instead of California, only worse.
I think your tradition is great.
This year our family is using Little Christmas as an opportunity to make up for not getting together at Thanksgiving.
My Dad's birthday....Jim and Donna, have yourselves a Merry "Little" Christmas! Doesn't matter Let it snow...keep warm and enjoy!
Merry Christmas and Happy Epiphany to you and your WIFE!
In our family, we celbrate Christmas for the full 12 Days. Our tree and all the decorations will be up through this weekend. . .
It is perhaps a trifle arcane, but 'xmas' isn't really commercial/secular in origin, or even particularly disrespectful. The 'X' is a kind of theological shorthand for 'Christ' (perhaps it's a representation of the cross, or the Greek letter 'chi', which is the first letter of 'Christ' in Greek). Way back when, I took a low-grade theology class, and I was surprised that the professor routinely wrote 'Xn' for 'Christian' and 'Xty' for 'Christianity'. So I mellowed out a bit, re 'xmas'. . .
Enjoy your Christmas celebration, and if you can't get out to dinner on the date of, i hope you can go the next day at least.
To All - Thank you very much for your kind words and well wishes!
Craig - I understand the "X", but I specifically refer to "commercial xmas". That has absolutely NOTHING to do with Jesus.
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year!
Amerry, merry Christmas to you Jim! And may your loved ones continue to make it even merrier.
Happy Twelfth Night, the other words for Little Christmas!
I was wondering how you fared in the big snowfall recently, I saw it on the telly news. And all we had here was COLD COLD COLD.
Merry Christmas Jim and very happy new year!!!
Hello! I've been following your web site for some time
now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you
a shout out from Humble Texas! Just wanted to tell you keep
up the good job!
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