Christmas 2009

Many of the traditions connected with Christmas are actually quite recent. We have the Victorians to thank for Christmas Cards, and Christmas Trees whilst an American soft drinks company lays claim to the red-suited gentleman whose name alone is derived from the fourth century bishop, Saint Nicholas of Myra. ‘Santa Claus’ comes from “Sanctus Nicolaus”.

To be fair, the Church itself has borrowed a bit, holly and ivy for example, from the early Winter Festivals which traditionally took place around this time, the 22nd December being the shortest day of the year.

So how long is the Christmas Season and what does it all mean? It begins with Evening Prayer on 24th December, and it used to end on 2 February (variously called Candlemas Day, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Presentation of Our Lord). But since the reforms of the Roman Calendar at the end of the 1960s, it now officially ends on the Sunday after the feast of the Epiphany. (In England and Wales the feast of the Epiphany (6th January) is transferred to the Sunday between the 2nd and the 8th of January.) Although at St. Mary’s, we shall take down the Christmas Tree and remove the Crib on that Sunday (this will be 10 January), other people will do so on ‘Twelfth Night’ (6 January); and in Italy, for example, the Cribs remain in position until 2nd February.

The Christmas Season has two main focal points. The first of these is, obviously, the Birth of Our Lord which, in Rome itself, has been celebrated on 25 December since at least the middle of the fourth century. The second is the Epiphany. Both these feasts celebrate the fact that God entered our world in human form or, as Saint John puts it in the Prologue to his Gospel, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” The difference in emphasis seems to be this. On Christmas Day we think of the ‘coming down’ of the Son of God into our world: we sing in the carol “He came down to earth from heaven,” and we also sing about the “lowly stable.” On Epiphany we direct our attention to the Child who is honoured as a King. One of the antiphons for this feast has these words: “The Wise Men saw the star and said to one another: This is the sign of the great King; let us go and seek him; let us offer him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

Within the Christmas Season, we celebrate the Holy Family (on the Sunday after Christmas); and we honour Mary in her role as the Mother of God (on 1st January). Several saints are also honoured during this time.