I looked up tonight from reading in my armchair and spied fat little Roscoe warming himself by the fire. Thought this was a nice end to the holiday season. Back to work full speed on Wednesday. Somebody needs to go on a diet in the new year. Besides me, I mean.
I only recently learned about the ‘old calendar christmas’ so for a long time I was just thinking that the people who kept their lights on past new years were just wanting to let the time linger.
The holiday season isn’t over till your lights go out. Marry Christmas to you and your own.
(sidenote, does that mean you get to take advantage of the white sale to buy Christmas presents. If so.. OO so jealous)
Jeffersonian says: Roscoe in the picture reminds me of our cat, Ming, who is usually found laying on a furnace register during the winter months, if not sneaking under the bed covers.
Dan Daly says: Good point Noah. I think the very term “holiday season” is a sign of appeasement to the materialist/pagan culture. Exactly which holidays are we celebrating? Christmas does not start at 4am the day after Thanksgiving nor end on Christmas day or after the New Year’s bowl games.
There is an Advent season and a Christmas season. There is a Lenten season and an Easter Season. There are also winter, spring, summer, and fall seasons. There is no “holiday season.”
Dan Davis says: Why do dogs use the hardest things for pillows? Ours likes the headboard, or the floor-level shelf of a bookshelf.
Dan Davis says: I mean he likes the footboard. Where’s the edit button?
Anyway, I’m off to the Y. I find that that, plus getting back to just eating normally, takes care of the holiday pounds.
MEH 0910 says: Somebody needs to go on a diet in the new year.
Study Suggests Lower Mortality Risk for People Deemed to Be Overweight
grendel says: also, even in the Western litgurical calendar, today is the 9th day of Christmas (if I counted right). And like the song says, there are 12 of them. Christmas doesn’t end until Epiphany, January 6th. Lights and decorations around our house stay up until then.
Rawlins says: My back-to-school day / post holiday prayer is that you & once-rescued Roscoe become swollen only with pride!
Surly says: For us, the Christmas season will be wrapped up with a bang on Saturday night. We are throwing a good old fashioned Twelfth Night party at our parish. Rarely is the eve of Epiphany so convenient–this year it’s on a Saturday so no excuse for not whooping it up.
I had to do a lot of digging to find info about Twelfth Night celebrations, but in doing so found out that historically the Twelfth Night celebrations were a bigger deal than Christmas itself. Curious to know if anybody here observes the feast?
Marian Neudel says: Hispanics, of course, celebrate the Dia de Los Reyes on January 6, and traditionally postpone their gift-giving until then. Great way to catch all the “post-holiday” sales and give nice gifts for less.
Dale James Nelson says: Twelve days of Christmas? I feel like it’s still a season of celebration. Christmastide ends with Epiphany.
David J. White says: I only recently learned about the ‘old calendar christmas’ so for a long time I was just thinking that the people who kept their lights on past new years were just wanting to let the time linger.
Grendel and Dale James Nelson beat me to it — when I was growing up my parents always kept at least some of the lights and decorations up through Epiphany.
Of course, in the Catholic liturgical calendar, the Christmas season as a whole doesn’t technically end until Candlemas (aka the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Feb. 2.
Chris 1 says: Being in a “new calendar” parish, we started the Nativity feast on the 25th and will end it with Theophany on the 6th.
Wondering if you’d be interested in having a discussion about the difference between American culture and Orthodox culture. For example, American culture feasts for a month prior to Christmas, then starts fasting as part of it’s New Year’s resolutions to lose the weight it gained from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Orthodox culture fasts before the feast, and arrives at the Nativity feast with anticipation of foods that it has not enjoyed for more than a month.
It leads to quite a different experience of Christmas itself, and the period before and after the holiday.
pilgrim says: That is a beautiful picture.
JonF says: Grendel, you’re very right– and I generally leave the decorations up until Jan 6.We had a little incident at church on Sunday: During the announcements one of the church ladies mentioned she’d like volunteers to help take the decorations down that day. The substitute priest (our main priest was out of town with his family) came down of her for that, pointing out that “The Twelve Days of Christmas” means something, liturgically (he apologized afterward to her for putting her on the spot like that)
End of the holiday season? Don’t the Orthodox celebrate Nativity next week? And then there is Slavonic New Year on the 14th, for your Slavic coreligionists.
[Note from Rod: Most Orthodox in the US celebrate Christmas on December 25, but ROCOR, at least, holds to the Old Calendar. Our new mission is ROCOR, so we're getting used to the Old Calendar. Yes, our Nativity celebration is next week, but the rest of our world is ending the holiday season, so it feels like the end. I was not as good as I ought to have been about following the Nativity fast, at least when we got to Western Christmas. Still, I plan to face-plant into a platter of gratin dauphinoise next week after liturgy. -- RD]