So I always thought the Twelve Days of Christmas were the days LEADING up to the 25th. It was about 2009 when I was talking with one of my Nia students about Christmas and taking down the tree and decorations that she mentioned it. She is quite savvy when it comes to etiquette, traditions, and customs so she said something about waiting until the Epiphany. And I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said she didn’t take her tree down until January 6th. I did like the sound of that because it was a date in January. Usually we take our tree down the weekend after New Year’s Day. I need help as there is so much packing to do. That is the worst part to me. I hate putting everything in its own box. But I will not just put all of my ornaments into those ornament holder boxes . . . . OH NO WAY! So, yes, I cause my own misery. Thankfully I have a husband who helps. I take stuff down and hand it to him with the box and he puts it in. He gets to sit and “relax” and watch a movie and I get my ornaments put in their original boxes. Yay. This year on the day we typically would have taken down the tree, I just didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready. We were gone for – what I think of as – a long time so I felt as if I “missed” some days of Christmas decorations. Plus I knew it would take longer than one day and I had a Nia Class at the YMCA on Sunday so I knew we wouldn’t get it all done. We decided that I would start this week and we would finish this weekend. This is when I said that we could abide by the “whatchmacallit?”, ya know the days after Christmas? The . . . I couldn’t remember so I had to look it up. The day my Nia student had referred to was the Epiphany. But when I looked it up there were some other days I don’t ever remember hearing about.
Could be that I didn’t know about these dates because they look as if they are related to the catholic faith. At least the website that I found is. My family was once catholic, but we stopped going to a catholic church before I had to go through all of my catechism classes and take my first communion.
The website states the below:
“What are the other feast days and holy days during the Christmas season?
In addition to Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Christmas and Mary, Mother of God, Catholics celebrate:
The Feast of the Holy Family, honoring Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a family. It is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas or on December 30. When Christmas falls on Sunday, it is celebrated December 31.
The Epiphany, the oldest of the Christmas feasts, is also known as Three Kings Day for the three magi who found the Christ Child after following a star to Bethlehem. It is celebrated on Jan. 6 and is the major holiday of the Christmas period in the Eastern Church.
The Baptism of Our Lord brings the Christmas season to a close. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Epiphany.”
So basically what this timeline is telling me is that the Christmas season comes to a close on January 11 this year. Which is pretty perfect because that is when I hope to have all of our Christmas decorations taken down and stored away.
I really thought the Twelve Days of Christmas were the days LEADING up to the 25th. So that is why I am not familiar with the Epiphany. If I knew the Twelve Days STARTED on Christmas, then I would have “got” the whole Epiphany thing.
Am I the only one? Did you know what the Twelve Days of Christmas were?
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