It Is Still Christmas

Though in most cases the tress have been taken down, the lights put away and the bad gifts returned it is still Christmas.

Christmas officially starts on Christmas Eve and continues for twelve days until January 6th and ends in what is known as Epiphany. Epiphany marks the time when the wisemen came to see the baby Jesus. But for most of us, including Christians, Christmas ended a couple of days after December 25th. Why?

The answer has more to do with economics. As we all know Christmas used to start right after Thanksgiving. Now it starts right after Halloween. In the shopping world it ends a few days after Christmas after all the stores seek to woo you back in with after Christmas discounts.

If you are like me, by the time the real twelve days of Christmas rolls around you are pretty much sick of it all. We took our tree down around the first of the year. There is an old tradition whereby people didn't put there tree up until Christmas Eve and left it up until Epiphany. This might be one action we might take to remember to worship Christ the babe born in Bethlehem instead of Madison Avenue. That is something worth thinking about.