The Best Part of Christmas - When It Ends?!

     Perhaps you've noticed the Christmas decorations are still up around the church.  Having spent many good years working in retail, I empathize deeply with those who feel that they should all magically disappear on December 26.  However, being a church musician in a more traditional and liturgical church, I also have a tendency to order my life by the liturgical calendar.
     The liturgical calendar evolved over centuries and has its most elemental roots in the Jewish calendar of feasts, and according to the calendar, four Sundays before Christmas Day is the start of the season called Advent.
     The term Advent comes from the the Latin word for "Coming."  During the Advent season we are reminded both that Jesus came into the world as a baby all those millennia ago, and that He will come again to take His children home.  It is a season of reflection and repentance, during which we are expected to prepare ourselves for His arrival.
     The problem we have in western cultures is the rampant commercialism of Christmas.  We have allowed ourselves to become so caught up in the mayhem of Christmas--the presents, the parties, the pageants.  Christmastime can be so exhausting we might find ourselves relieved when it's over!  But there is a solution, or perhaps more accurately, a balm to soothe the frayed edges of our psyches, abraded and abused by the madness of a secularized Christmas.
     The balm is found in the liturgical calendar, for it is there that we find the Church traditionally calls the weeks after Christmas as the "Christmas Season!"*
     So if the Advent season has got you down with it's pandemonium, look to the liturgical Christmas season--The time following Christmas Day, when through His church, God has given us a time to reflect, and a time to forget the madness of "Pre-Christmas."  Use this time to celebrate the arrivals of Jesus Christ, both past and future!  Let the relief of the end of a frenetic December remind you of the Peace of Christmas that baby brought.  And remember that peace is available to you when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Christmas Blessings throughout the year to you and yours,





*(Depending on your church's tradition, it ends on January 6 or the Sunday after that.  Look up "Epiphany" and/or "Baptism of Our Lord" for more info.)

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