In recent years, Christmas seems to have got longer. For many people, the holiday lasts a week until 2nd January. This is the case at the university where I worked, although the extended holiday was driven less by the wish to give staff extra holiday than a desire to save heating and lighting costs across the campus. Those who work in retail have a rather different experience of Chirstmas, as it has become a festival of shopping. As the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” reminds us, there is nothing new in this. From early times, Christmas was celebrated over an extended period; the twelve days are the period from Christmas Day to January 6th, Epiphany, which in the Chirstian calendar marks the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus. For the most part, the twelve days were largely observed as a time for partying and celebration; a welcome break from the dark and cold just after the shortest day on December 21st. There are some important religious days included within the twelve days, some of which act as a reality check to the theme of goodwill and jollity; St Stephen on the 26th, the first Christian to die for his beliefs; Holy Innocents on the 28th, marking the massacre of children that King Herod is said to have carried out in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus. I suspect few apart from vicars really notice these. However, somewhere, between perpetual sack-cloth and ashes and eternal frivolities is a balance in which we should strive to live.
Rev David Poyner