12 Days of Christmas

How would you like to join me in a revolution of sorts?  A revolution to take back the 12 days of Christmas!  Okay, I'm not the revolutionist type and I don't care quite enough to buck the modern trend, but I do care enough to blog about it perhaps inform you.  Maybe you could start the revolution!

I did not grow up in a church that followed the Church Calendar.  I didn't discover Advent until I was well into my adult years.  Even then it was in a Baptist church so was probably only half- accurate at best.  I took a course called Preaching Through the Church Year and learned a little about the Church Calendar.  I have incorporated my version of Advent into the churches I have pastored and enjoy the anticipation.  

But here's the problem, we don't truly celebrate Advent in the sense of true waiting and anticipation.  I don't know if liturgical churches do it right (maybe someone could enlighten me on that), but the churches I know mix the Advent and Christmas seasons together.  We sing Christmas hymns right along with Advent hymns(I actually only know a couple Advent hymns).  We have our Christmas programs and Christmas nativity scenes all set up.  We pretend we are anticipating, but we are celebrating everything that Christmas means at the same time.  I have a feeling that we are missing the best of both.

I discovered that, according to the Church Calendar, the Christmas season actually starts on Christmas Day.   That's what the twelve days of Christmas are all about.    You can read more about the history of the twelve days of Christmas in an article at Christian History.net.  Allow me to share a bit of what you'll find there.

Exhortations to follow this calendar rather than the secular one have become routine at this time of year. But often the focus falls on giving Advent its due, with the Twelve Days of Christmas relegated to the words of a cryptic traditional carol. Most people are simply too tired after Christmas Day to do much celebrating.

The "real" twelve days of Christmas are important not just as a way of thumbing our noses at secular ideas of the "Christmas season." They are important because they give us a way of reflecting on what the Incarnation means in our lives. Christmas commemorates the most momentous event in human history—the entry of God into the world He made, in the form of a baby. The Logos through whom the worlds were made took up His dwelling among us in a tabernacle of flesh.

So is there any chance we can keep Christmas out of the church until Christmas Day so we can appreciate the fullness of Advent and Christmas?  I didn't think so.  But I'd sure love to give it a try.  I'd love to get the full feel of the longing and anticipation, both for Christ's first coming and His coming again.  And I'd love to know what it would be like to extend Christmas and all it means for an extra twelve days instead of having it end on Christmas day.  Anyone like to join me? 

Grace and peace,

Dave