Gently fighting for Christmas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Merry Christmas. No, honest, as in "the 12 days of" you know what between Dec. 25 and Jan. 5. If you doubt the accuracy of this statement, you can head\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2008\/12\/gently-fighting-for-christmas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gently fighting for Christmas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Merry Christmas. No, honest, as in "the 12 days of" you know what between Dec. 25 and Jan. 5. 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{"id":1520,"date":"2008-12-29T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T09:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2008-12-29T01:00:51","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T09:00:51","slug":"gently-fighting-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2008\/12\/gently-fighting-for-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Gently fighting for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n

No, honest, as in \u201cthe 12 days of\u201d you know what between Dec. 25 and Jan. 5.<\/p>\n

If you doubt the accuracy of this statement, you can head over to the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There you will find an interactive calendar that bravely documents the fact that, according to centuries of Christian tradition, the quiet season called Advent has just ended and the 12-day Christmas season has just begun.<\/p>\n

So cease stripping the decorations off your tree and postpone its premature trip to the curb. There is still time to prepare for a Twelfth Night party and then the grand finale on Jan. 6, when the feast of the Epiphany marks the arrival in Bethlehem of the magi.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would be amazed how hard it was to find information on the World Wide Web about all of this,\u201d lamented Joe Larson, the USCCB\u2019s director of digital media. \u201cWe wanted to link to sites that would help tell Catholics what we believe about these seasons and why we do what we do \u2014 or what we are supposed to do \u2014 during Advent and Christmas. \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we ended up with is definitely not a finished product, but we\u2019ll expand it in the future. We got the ball rolling this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The materials gathered at www.usccb.org\/advent<\/a> do not, at first glance, appear to be all that rebellious. <\/p>\n

The website contains pull-down menus providing scriptures, prayers, meditations and biographies of the saints whose feasts are celebrated during these seasons. Note that the feast of St. Nicholas of Myra \u2014 yes, that St. Nicholas \u2014 was back on Dec. 6. Another page suggests family movies for the seasons, some obvious (think \u201cThe Nativity Story\u201d) and some not so obvious (think \u201cErnest Saves Christmas\u201d).<\/p>\n

The Christmas season has always been complicated. Many early Christians celebrated the birthday of Jesus on May 20, while others used dates in April and March. Most early believers, however, emphasized the Jan. 6 feast of the Epiphany. <\/p>\n

Then, sometime before 354, Christians in Rome began celebrating the Feast of the Nativity on Dec. 25, which created tension with the Eastern churches that were using different dates. Then, in 567, the Second Council of Tours established Dec. 25 as the nativity date, Jan. 6 as Epiphany and the 12 days in between as the Christmas season \u2014 the liturgical calendar\u2019s biggest party.<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is that Advent now clashes with the 30-something or 40-something days of the secular season \u2014 called \u201cThe Holidays\u201d \u2014 that begins with the shopping mall rituals of Thanksgiving weekend. For most Americans, Christmas Day is the end of \u201cThe Holidays,\u201d even though it is the beginning of the real Christmas season.<\/p>\n

While many Christians still observe Advent \u2014 especially Anglicans, Lutherans and other mainline Protestants \u2014 some older Roman Catholics may remember when the guidelines for the season were stricter. In Eastern Orthodoxy, the season is still observed by many as \u201cNativity Lent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a pre-Vatican II context, Advent looked a lot like Lent,\u201d noted Father Rick Hilgartner, associate director of the USCCB\u2019s Secretariat of Divine Worship. \u201cIt was the season you used to prepare for Christmas, the way Lent helps you prepare for Easter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, it\u2019s even hard for priests to follow the rhythms of the church\u2019s prayers, hymns and rites, he said. Hilgartner said he tries to stay away from Christmas tree lots and shopping malls until at least halfway through Advent. He accepts invitations to some Christmas parties, even though they are held in Advent. <\/p>\n

Now that it\u2019s finally Christmas, he feels a pang of frustration when he turns on a radio or television and finds that \u2014 after being bombarded with \u201choliday\u201d stuff for weeks \u2014 the true season is missing in action.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be different, of course, if we all lived in a monastic community and the liturgical calendar totally dominated our lives,\u201d said Hilgartner. \u201cThen we could get away with celebrating the true seasons and we wouldn\u2019t even whisper the word \u2018Christmas\u2019 until the start of the Christmas Mass. But the church doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum and we can\u2019t live in a cultural bubble. \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s good to try to be reasonable. It\u2019s good to slow down and it\u2019s good to celebrate Christmas, at least a little, during Christmas. It\u2019s good to try.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"