Christmastide

Christmas day this year was the quietest Christmas I've ever experienced. I've passed the denial phase that Christmastime is supposed to be spent at church, just like what we did back home. Yet here, Christmas as family time honestly makes me feel homesick and lonely. Church that we attend regularly didn't have Christmas eve service, so we went to different church that had great choir, string quartet, pipe organ, and nice sermon. Eventhough it's not supposed to affect the meaning of Christmas, being around people that we didn't know gave different feeling. That was time that I want to celebrate with familiar faces that I loved. While most friends back home long for white Christmas and places of full Christmas decoration, I long for my tropical Christmas with my family, relatives, and church friends.

On the way to the mountain a day after Christmas, I turned on our car's radio, hoping to hear Christmas song. This may sound pathetic that Christmas songs (yes, even those that have nothing to do with Nativity since I can't control the songs that radio want to play), can appease my holiday loneliness. Guess what?! there's no Christmas songs anymore. Wild new year's wave has replaced the joyful Christmas atmosphere. Evenmore, almost every store marked their Christmas stuffs on sale. I found this interesting. On calendar that we had back home there's a note below the numbers 25 of December that said "first day of Christmas". Doesn't that mean the 26 and so forth are the second, the third, etc...?

About a week ago my friend told me that she always gives present on twelve days of Christmas for her three kids. She started when her first kid was little. Until now, about 20 years later, that tradition is still a highlight for her kids on Christmastime. Every day before Christmas day, her kids would open small gift under their small Christmas tree. Until there's only one present, means Christmas day. I can imagine the joy of opening present every day!
Went home from the mountain, we listened to my favorite radio show, Prairie Home Companion that was talking about that day, the second day of twelve days of Christmas. Wait, what?!

Didn't agree with the hard line between Christmas day and a day after, I looked up Wikipedia. The twelve days of Christmas are festive days beginning on Christmas day (December 25) until January 5th (before Epiphany, on the 6th). This time is also called Christmastide. The Epiphany itself has different meaning for different culture. For Eastern Christianity, it is to commemorate Jesus' baptism in Jordan River, while for other, it is to commemorate the magi. In United Kingdom and Western Christianity, twelve days of Christmas is continuous merrymaking and feasting. In England nowadays, the twelfth day is last day people take down their Christmas decoration.

Although twelve days of Christmas is not mentioned in the bible, I like the idea of having celebration after the Christmas day. People seem hectic in doing Christmas shopping days before Christmas and then passing Christmas day like blowing balloon for days then poke it in a millisecond! I just wish people's Christmas greet and friendly faces could get extended twelve days more It is not surprising to read that in the United States the twelve days of Christmas becomes secular tradition. It's even started 12 days before Christmas day, instead of after. Present present and present! and Santa Claus as always plays role in shifting the religious tradition to "more colorful and sweeter" physical meaning. Isn't it so much for mentioning this country as a Christian nation?

If you fell gloomy of the dim Christmas like I did, don't be! Dec 25th was just the beginning. Lets enjoy our Christmastide with joy and thanksgiving.
For unto us a Child is born...