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Twelve Days of Christmas Begins on Christmas Day
Christmas is a season, not just a day, in spite of the consumer-driven, gift-focused frenzy that surrounds December 25th. There is one calendar we are used to keeping time by, but as followers of Jesus, the church calendar provides a Christ-centered focus for our days. In the church year the Christmas season is marked by the birth of Christ as it should be, but that is only the beginning of the holidays. The Twelve Days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day ending on Epiphany January 6th. The season of Twelvetide (as it is sometimes called) is a slow walk into the new year and beyond, ending with the celebration marking…
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Can We Celebrate Santa Claus & the Savior?
Weaving together the wonder of Christmas involves one part honoring the birth of our Savior and one part honoring the life of a saint. Nicholas, to be exact. Yes, we know whose birthday it is, but the fact is we get all the presents. It would be easy to blame our culture and their cashing in, literally, on the character of Santa Claus, but let’s not be so hasty. “As we wait for God to become incarnate, we look to the whole body of Christ, past and present, for models of embodied faith.” Beth Bevis, in “God with Us-Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas.” One example of that ‘embodied faith’ was…
