When does Christmas begin for you?

If we remember our gospel story, the Wise Men bringing gifts arrived something like two weeks after Christmas. Yet our contemporary celebration of Christmas has us exchanging presents on the same day we celebrate Christ's nativity. Then, there's the tradition of Santa and his reindeer and the magical trip around the world on the same night. All of which has us wondering this year, when does Christmas really start?

Does Christmas begin with the wrapping of the first presents? With their purchase or making or baking? When the first present is placed under the tree? Is it when Santa lands on the roof of the house? When the elves fill the stockings? When the elves and the reindeer and Santa depart?

Christmas at The Dayton House

Photo by J. Harrington

When we were young, sometime in the last millennium, we remember the rule was no opening presents until mom and dad came downstairs on Christmas morning. Does Christmas begin with the opening of the first present? With the emptying of the stockings? For adults, with the first cup of coffee on Christmas morn?

Obviously, over the years, many of us have found a variety of ways for each of our families to celebrate Christmas in fashions that are traditional but that vary over time and space in each family over generations. Our Christmas seasons have been complicated because our son was born on Christmas day and our daughter early in December. We've found ways to accommodate those births within the flow of the season. When the children lived at home, the tree had to be up in its stand by the Daughter Person's birthday. Christmas, regardless of when it began, ended at noon because at 12:01 pm, our son's birthday celebration began. That was, and is, his special time.

Charles Dickens, author of that wonderful tale, A Christmas Carol, wrote this quote for Ebenezer Scrooge:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” 

As we move forward toward this year's Christmas and next year's Epiphany, might it not help each of us, and our families, to remember and act on Dickens' proposition no matter when we start our celebration of the day. Have the past four years not brought sufficient travail that a period of peace and good will is in order? Then again, didn't Christ, as an adult, drive moneychangers from the temple? How do we reconcile those two images if not in the spirit of Christmas? 

Christmas Carol

By Sara Teasdale

The kings they came from out the south, 

   All dressed in ermine fine; 

They bore Him gold and chrysoprase, 

   And gifts of precious wine.

 

The shepherds came from out the north, 

   Their coats were brown and old; 

They brought Him little new-born lambs— 

   They had not any gold.

 

The wise men came from out the east, 

   And they were wrapped in white; 

The star that led them all the way 

   Did glorify the night.

 

The angels came from heaven high, 

   And they were clad with wings; 

And lo, they brought a joyful song 

   The host of heaven sings.

 

The kings they knocked upon the door, 

   The wise men entered in, 

The shepherds followed after them 

   To hear the song begin.

 

The angels sang through all the night 

   Until the rising sun, 

But little Jesus fell asleep 

   Before the song was done.

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