Unfashionably Late
How senior editor Jennifer Woodruff Tait celebrates Christmas
Adoration of the Magi, Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ever since my family came to understand the historical celebration of Advent as a season of preparation for Christmas, and the Twelve Days of Christmas as constituting the actual Christmas season and not an afterthought to December 25th, the liturgical year has shaped how we celebrate these seasons. The idea of Christmas Day as the season’s beginning, not its end, first impressed itself on me and my parents in the late 1980s, when I was a teenager and the new United Methodist Hymnal came out in 1989. (It remains the official hymnal of the UMC, and there are still people calling it the “new” hymnal even though it is nearly forty years old!)
Ministry life
This hymnal was explicitly structured around the liturgical year, as was the United Methodist Book of Worship which followed it in 1992. My father was a pastor and my mother a church musician, so the liturgical insights of these books shaped their professional life as well as our family life. We were already inclined to hold back on many Christmas family celebrations despite the Christmas furor of the world around us in December because we were devoting so much time to church activities and it wasn’t until Christmas morning that we all caught our breath. Now we became more intentional about our celebrations and felt less guilty about postponing family get-togethers until the Twelve Days of Christmas; leaving our lights on and decorations up until well into the New Year; gathering as a family for lessons and carol services and watchnight services in our living room; and otherwise truly extending the Nativity celebration to its fullest.
When my husband and I got married and formed a family of our own, we continued with this approach - unapologetic about what looked to the outside world like the lateness of our decorations and Christmas cards, and teaching our children how the joy of Christmas was meant to last more than just a day. In 2011 I became Episcopalian and in 2017 my husband became Roman Catholic, which placed us more squarely into traditions which observed the historic distinctions between Advent and Christmas and maintained Christmas celebrations until January 6th. (That wasn’t why we did it in either case, but it was a nice bonus.) Over the years I’ve probably become less of the “Advent police” than I was in my idealistic youth; especially in concert with my younger child, who never saw a feast day she didn’t want to decorate for, I’ve embraced putting up decorations and going to Christmas gatherings during December as part of what I am doing to prepare my heart. We usually put up the decorations sometime after the first Sunday of Advent, and we always leave them up until Epiphany on January 6. Sometimes they have stayed up as long as Candlemas (February 2).
As my husband and I both have continued to be employed by churches, our Christmas Eve and Day celebrations are fairly simple and usually arranged around church services. In the evening, after the Christmas Eve service, my kids look in their stockings - which always have an orange, candy, and a coin, a tradition we modeled on Little House on the Prairie over a decade ago - and if they like, they can open one gift. I also collect manger scenes, and we keep the Baby Jesuses out of their mangers until Christmas Eve (and the Wise Men out of the way until Epiphany.) On Christmas Day, my husband has to play for Mass and I sometimes attend an Episcopal service; so the morning is for church and rest, and after a large dinner with family members, the afternoon is for opening gifts. (I got used to opening gifts in the afternoon as a child due to my parents’ church responsibilities, and we’ve continued this - we’re probably the only house on the block where we don’t even touch the gifts until after noon!)
Continuing Christmas
We mark the Twelve Days in a few ways. We keep the Christmas lights on, and I listen to Christmas music (intentionally, anyway - it’s kind of hard to avoid it unintentionally) only between December 25 and January 6. Some years ago I also started a habit of taking pictures for social media during the Twelve Days of Christmas as well as the Great Fifty Days of Easter (you can read more about how that habit of mine got started here) as a way of keeping the liturgical seasons in mind even as the secular world moved on. My husband, the family cook, often tries out special Christmas dishes or pastries during the Twelve Days. I get the Christmas cards finished and mailed. And on January 6, we bring all the Wise Men to all the mangers to worship the Infant King.
Jennifer Woodruff Tait is a senior editor of Christian History. Read about the history and practice of Advent, Christmas, and the other liturgical seasons in Fasts and Feasts: A historical guide to the church calendar, also written by Jennifer Woodruff Tait.