It is that time of year again. All my friends are trying to get everything done in the next day, and then they plan to relax a little, certain that the holidays are done. Many of my favorite bloggers are announcing a brief blog hiatus, taking a week or so to enjoy family at Christmas. And by next week, some of you will be complaining that Christmas is over too soon.
Az the Husband and I live off-kilter from other people’s schedules, and there is no place I feel it more than Christmas. We celebrate Christmas by the traditional Christian calendar: beginning on Dec 25 and ending on Epiphany, January 6. We open presents on Christmas morning, but our decorations stay up until Jan 6. We have our biggest party (sometimes our only party) of the year on Twelfth Night, January 5.
And last year I started my own blog tradition of writing a Christmas post for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. As other bloggers are sweeping up the decoration detritus, I am still in mid-celebration. Az the Husband and I live happily hermitted away in our own Christmas cave, blithely ignoring the post-Christmas crash going on around us.
So as you all are heaving a sigh of relief on Tuesday evening, relieved that Christmas is over for another year, I will be deep in thought, trying to welcome you all with SOMETHING NEW to say about Christmas for twelve days in a row, and then running around the house trying to clean it up enough to welcome our real life friends on Twelfth Night.
If you want to come down off your Christmas rush slowly, this will be the place to be.
What a welcome relief… It makes me sad that some people end Christmas celebrations so quickly. I look forward to your posts. Thanks!
I am with you!!! I try to do the same, although our tree is already dead, so everything else will remain and we will ditch the tree. Merry Merry!!!
We celebrate Epiphany too!
Some of my family members used to “celebrate” Christmas by taking the Christmas tree down on Christmas afternoon. How festive.
(and look at me, commenting on blogs! Back to my cave…)
This is so wierd…I found your blog through someone else (antique mommy maybe? or Daring Young Mom?), but I saw that you just linked to Brian Walsh, who I know from my faith community in Toronto, and who is also a part of Empire Remixed. All one small circle…neat to know we’re connected. In Advent hope, and abundant blessings.
I’ve been wanting to start something Epiphany-wise this year with my kiddos (4 1/2 and almost 1). Can you give some suggestions as to what you do to commemorate the season?
I like the idea of celebrating Epiphany although we’ve never done it. I have big plans for celebrating next year. I want to make the season as meaningful as possible without all the materialism that seems to accompany this time of year. I’m looking forward to your Twelve Days of Christmas posts.
We’re just starting this tradition in our home. Both my husband and I grew up Evangelical, so Christmas day was it. Actually, it is making some Christmas compromises easier – instead of arguing over how to celebrate on Christmas day, we’re just going to celebrate it in his family’s fashion on the 25th, and then use my family’s traditions on Epiphany! I think it will work out beautifully.
What a nice tradition…
We celebrate epiphany, too. I’ll be looking forward to reading your twelve posts. Merry Christmas Veronica!
How excellent! I’ll be celebrating still in a long-distance, Hawaiian sort of way, but I love reading about your traditions because they motivate me for the coming years when my husb. and I get to plan (at last!) some of our own festivities.
For now, we’re at the mercy of our families – but this is the LAST year. I’m stockpiling ideas and therefore, looking forward to your posts.
I too love to linger on this holiday. The shear magnitude of the birth of the birth of Christ, who came to give us grace, makes my eyes overflow with tears and my heart swell with love. Truly he came to bring Joy to the world!
I love that. After Christmas day is when it feels most like Christmas to me–slow days playing games with the kids–having gatherings with our friends–reflecting on the season. I’m glad that you will be here, writing for us! It is a lovely gift.
I second what Pieces said! I never feel that CHristmas is over on the 25th…that’s when it starts (well, Christmas Eve is when it starts), when the rush is over and we can relax and enjoy it. And one of the ways I enjoy things and relax is computer time for me
We’re a family of readers, game players, etc; we enjoy individual activities done in proximity to each other 