Why We NEED 12 Days of Christmas

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The culture has wrestled the “12 Days of Christmas” away from the Church. Let’s take those days back. Honestly, we NEED 12 Days of Christmas.

Confusion

We all know the phrase because of the song. You know: from the ground-nesting seed-eating bird somehow stuck in a fruit tree, to the extremely large percussion section.

We are made even more familiar with the phrase by annual marketing efforts: 12 days of bargains and that kind of thing. In this the Holy Birth of Christ gets twisted around in multiple ways.

First, the purpose of Christmas is turned into buying and selling.
Second, the 12 days are mistakenly moved backward into Advent.

Clarity

So to end all confusion let me say that December 25 is Day #1 of Christmas. The 12 days take us up through January 5.

The next season of the Church year begins with Epiphany on January 6.

Three Reasons We NEED 12 Days of Christmas

We really need the full 12 days of Christmas. I’ll give you three reasons. I hope you’ll add your own in the comments.

1. The birth of Christ is far too big a deal to celebrate with just one day.  This is the day when God the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Christmas is the beginning of God’s restoration of humanity, and of all creation.

That deserves more attention — especially when Christmas day festivities will not leave room to contemplate the mystery. (I posted earlier this week on the great mystery of Christmas. Check it out!)

2. By keeping the full 12 Days, Christians mark the genuinely Christian celebration. In our culture, Christmas as a day of gifts and gatherings has expanded well beyond those who care at all for Jesus. That is perfectly fine. I have to think God loves both joy and giving. He’s probably happy to have inspired it.

But Christians need that and more. By finding ways to mark the whole season of Christ’s coming, we remind ourselves of what is true and we quietly bear witness to the Truth.

3. In pragmatic terms, your kids will be much better off with 12 Days. I don’t mean they get more stuff. I’m saying they are better off spreading the stuff across a couple of weeks.

A lot of families go a bit overboard with the gift giving. If we have the financial means to give gifts, parents tend to give more than one thing to each kid. Then there are gifts from grandparents, who also have come across more than one choice item. And Aunts and Uncles. Possibly teachers. Maybe school friends. Other friends. You see where this is going.
My early Christmas memories are of opening everything all at once. Sure, it was a rush, seeing all of those new toys. But it went by so fast I couldn’t even remember who to say “Thank you!” to.
And then it was done. After a greedy glut of a Christmas morning, Christmas afternoon could be downright depressing.

Now that we have kids of our own, we ration out the presents. There is time to enjoy each one before moving on. One time when the kids opened up a marble run game the whole family stopped for an hour or so building complicated towers and machines to roll the balls through. We just enjoyed it.

It is better. It is saner.

And  there are still things for them to look forward to, all the way to January 5.

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