The first five days of Christmas

For people of faith the Christmas season has just begun. Christmas Day was its first day. Some members of my own family have already taken down their Christmas tree.  For some it's already over because the economic engines have left the Christmas stations behind.

A local TV station has warned us about the dangers of burning your own live Christmas tree near your own house. But that's a message I only remember hearing later in this season. I recall a big local event being the burning of Christmas trees in Broad Ripple Park on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, that is, the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. Of course, January 6 isn't always the Feast of the Epiphany anymore since the Church calendar now transfers it to the nearest Sunday for worship.

There are holdouts, of course. Purists continue to observe January 6 as the Twelfth Day of Christmas and celebrate accordingly. The combination of Advent preparation and Christmas celebration has been re-engineered by bureaucrats so that all the major feasts fall on Sundays because it is too much trouble for us to celebrate it on a weekday when the business of America and our societies must be maintained first.

Many Orthodox Christians fast before Christmas Day. They identify the Nativity Fast as the period of preparing to celebrate Jesus Christ’s birth. It is believed that fasting helps people shift their focus from themselves to others, spending less time worrying about food and using more time in increased prayer and caring for the poor. In return, fasting before the Nativity enables one to fully enjoy, appreciate and celebrate the Nativity of Christ. Does that sound like Lent? Why would anyone want to do that twice a year?

For many Orthodox Christians, Christmas Day is not about presents, eggnog or Christmas characters that have become popular through commercialization. Christmas Day is a time to heal the soul. It is also a time of peace and unity.

White cloth is used on dinner tables in some countries to symbolize purity and the cloth that baby Jesus was wrapped in. Straw may be placed on these tables to symbolize the simplicity of the place where Jesus was born.  Candles may be lit to represent the light of Christ and the festive Christmas meal represents the end of fasting.

On December 27 we celebrated the great feast of John the Evangelist. On December 26 we celebrated the great feast of Stephen the first martyr. The first day of Christmas was full of joy over the birth of the child born poor. The second day of Christmas was full of sorrow for the first follower of this child who would be murdered because he accepted the poverty of the child. The third day of Christmas honors the man who stood by the child in his adulthood, the man who loved him so much that he accepted responsibility for his remaining family. December 28 was the fourth day and we remember those who never knew the child, those who suffered and died in anonymity because of the jealousy of those who held power in the secular kingdom in which Jesus was born. This year on the fifth day we celebrate the family of Jesus as an encouragement to each of our own families to identify the diversity of husband, wife, child - man, woman, and young boy or girl - a diversity that joins together to make up the first unit of any society, a building block of hope, faith and charity in a world hell bent on destroying anything that smacks of unity and achievement.

The remaining days of Christmas until January 6 refuse to acknowledge the death of pine needles in our waste centers. There is so much more to glean from the birth of this child than a pretty picture for our photo albums. Jesus is not about egg nog and cheap ornaments. Jesus is about healing the soul. Jesus is about living and dying.