Your social media pictures of Christmas trees already assembled and decorated in November make me shudder. I am a small-hearted, fussy man. I like my Christmas in December, please, and that not until the actual Feast of the Nativity (Not the Feast of the Incarnation. Rookie mistake) on the evening of the 24th. The problem is me, not you. Well, the problem is a bit more widespread than that, but my attitude, I mean. My bad attitude is all me. The real problem is that as a culture we don’t really know how to celebrate Christmas anymore. Most of us dive right into the saccharine insanity of it even before Thanksgiving. This year, in fact, I saw Christmas wrapping paper displays at the grocery store in the month of October! Dear giant, impersonal corporations, please stop making us hate holidays.
Like Santa, I feel the real need to punch something.
It seems to me that we currently have two options. We can either learn to stop worrying, buy the wrapping paper in June, put up the tree when the school year starts, and sing our hearts out to Jingle Bell Rock during Lent, or we can become emotionally warped anti-Christmas crusaders and maintain a penitential Advent with nary a wisp of mistletoe in sight. The best of this breed leaves the Christmas tree up until February and haughtily explains to the rest of us that in the unreformed, medieval calendar, Christmas lasts until the feast of Purification. I am tempted to become the latter of these options. But really, neither one is any good at all.

Caravaggio’s nativity is powerful for its lack of sentimentality. Mary is isolated and exhausted, but she has her Son. He is all she needs.
The first seems more open-hearted but ends up destroying the holiday season. We are so tired of celebrating that by the time the Feast of the Nativity actually arrives, we are exhausted; the tree is taken down the next day and the next 11 days of Christmas go uncelebrated. What about the Epiphany and the wise men! These intrepid travelers shift heaven and earth to make their way across the desert only to find our doors locked and the manger scene boxed up in the basement. The Christmas festivities that predate the birth of Our Lord seem to have been unearned, a sentimental holiday that makes its departure from the Nativity but doesn’t actually understand the way in which the birth of Our Lord shakes the very foundations of the universe.
The other option, the Advent curmudgeon, is also an untenable position because it misses the whole point in a different way. At the heart of all the traditions and rules of the Church is the everlasting virtue of charity. At Christmas, this is impossible to miss, like not noticing a crying babe in a manger. The anti-Christmas crusader gets the rules right but doesn’t notice Christ. Nothing to see here. It’s still Advent. As I said, I’m sympathetic but what we really need is to find a way to maintain respect for both seasons and truly celebrate the Birth of Christ while rising to his challenge to, above all else, love.
So, how to celebrate in a way that embraces the love that everyone seems to have developed for the season? Sure, there are the usual complaints about over-commercialization and bad music and all that, but the point really is that in an increasingly post-Christian world, people are celebrating the birth of Christ! Even a tame, watered-down version of the feast is better than nothing at all. I’m not really interested in fighting it.
The secret is in the Catholic calendar.
Here are a few ways, based on the joyful preparation of the Church, to properly celebrate that both get us into the spirit of the season but also respect the unique celebrations that are Advent and Christmas. The best part of it is, when Christmas comes each year, our family is happy to celebrate the whole season.
- Make an Advent wreath and actually light it each night at dinner. Ostentatiously explain to the kids that the 3rd candle isn’t pink; it is rose.
- Celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas on Dec 6. Have the kids put out shoes to be filled with chocolate coins. Explain to them that St. Nick both loved children and punched heretics. And he actually existed.
- Celebrate the Feast of St. Lucy on Dec 13. Nominate a “St. Lucy” and go all out with the wreath-candle hat. Have the boys make hats decorated with stars and moons. Form a procession to the neighbor’s house to deliver treats. Chant an old-school litany. Kids love it.
- 8 days before Christmas, begin singing one of the “O Antiphons” each night before dinner. Basically, the verses to O Come O Come Emmanuel. Monks have been chanting these for hundreds of year at Evening Prayer and they are really a lovely way to mark the time. Bonus points if you do it in Latin.
- On Christmas Eve, decorate the tree, put on all the Christmas music, and go totally overboard. I think it was GK Chesterton who argued that the Feasts of the Church should arrive suddenly and joyously. At Christmas, this is particularly appropriate because it is exactly how a new child arrives into the world: suddenly and joyously.
- Christmas Day. Go to Mass! This is a really great experience and we have found that it doesn’t take away from family time at all. After Mass we come home and feast on all manner of pancakes and breakfast treats. If Advent is penitential, Christmas has to be a true feast.
- Keep the tree up for at least the 12 days after. While everyone else is sick of Christmas. We are just getting started. We don’t leave it up until Feb 2 because that tends to feel like a bit too much, but we compromise and leave it usually until the Baptism of Our Lord in mid-January.
Happy Holidays!
I just realized what some of the angry Advent curmudgeons remind me of: those geeks who rant about “fake gamer girls.” When you’re mad that too many people like your cool stuff, it might be time to lighten up!
This is very unevenly written. First you condemn those who propose that Catholics should return to celebrating Advent and Christmas each it its proper place, and then you propose doing exactly that.
Catholics who want to remind other Catholics that Christmas should be celebrated during the Christmas season are not “emotionally warped anti-Christmas crusaders.” Such slander! I want to remind you that the Church is the originator of “maintaining a penitential Advent with nary a wisp of misletoe in sight.”
And, by the way, attending Mass on Christmas Day isn’t a “suggestion” for Catholics to be offered apologetically and with reassurances that it doesn’t take away from family time. If a Catholic doesn’t attend Mass on Christmas, all the other practices you suggest will be empty of grace, because we are obliged to go under pain of serious sin. And we should delight in going go anyway to worship Our Savior who is born that day in Bethlehem.
You also wrote: “The best of this breed leaves the Christmas tree up until February and haughtily explains to the rest of us that in the unreformed, medieval calendar, Christmas lasts until the feast of Purification…. But really, neither one is any good at all.” Quite a blanket condemnation for those of us who leave the tree up until the 40 days of Christmas are over. I have written in several places about this topic quite frequently, and any haughtiness is in the mind of the perceiver. In spite of what you wrote, that option is far from being no good at all. Even if you are content with leaving your tree up until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, do you really think it’s appropriate to call those who leave their tree up longer haughty and their practice “not good at all”?
Roseanne, thanks for commenting. Hopefully, it is clear that I am accusing mostly myself for slipping into a curmudgeonly spirit. If the portrait doesn’t fit, don’t feel the need to paint yourself in. The sin, for me, isn’t leaving the tree up until Feb 2, but the inevitable pride that would accompany (again, for me). The habit itself for those who happen to worship using the old calendar I’m sure is quite commendable as you have undoubtedly explained elsewhere.
Dear Michael, Thank you for replying to my comment. I am not painting myself into the portrait. I am simply responding to your actual words as written, which apparently didn’t match your intention.
No it wasn’t clear that you are accusing mostly yourself. Your tone came across that those who promote delaying the celebration of Christmas until the feast begins are attempting to steal people’s joy and are uncharitable. It is not uncharitable to celebrate as the Church wants us to celebrate, at the proper time. Nobody is trying to steal anyone’s joy, but actually to enhance it.
Who is the “anti-Christmas crusader”?
You wrote: “The anti-Christmas crusader gets the rules right but doesn’t notice Christ. Nothing to see here. It’s still Advent.” These sentences strongly imply that following the rules means you don’t notice Christ.
Happy Advent!