How do You Celebrate Christ's Mass?

What? Christmas lasts more than one day? You mean there really are 12 days of Christmas? All the way through Epiphany? Wow! It sure is grand to be Catholic! Grin.

Our family, and many of those we know, struggle with how to live Advent as real preparation for Christmas, and Christmas as a time of celebration and feasting for 12 whole days. The purpose of this post is to share ideas about how to celebrate Christmas -- the full season long.

I like to use the creative process (I'll cover that in more detail in a future post) to help with strategic visioning. It's how I figure out what I want for lunch and how to orchestrate social and theological revolutions (surprisingly, I'm not kidding). Grin. Anyway, we start by naming what we want to create:

Christmas Tide Vision
A Christmas Tide celebration feast with family and friends which starts sundown Christmas Eve and goes solid tilt through Epiphany.

Of course there are a few things which we have to be aware of because our culture make realizing that grand vision a real challenge:

Current Reality as it Relates to Christmas Tide

• The commercialization of Christmas, which now begins just after St. Valentines Day. Sardonic grin.
• People seem to think Christmas begins December 1st. When is the season of Christmas parties? Nearly all are in Advent, before the feast has begun. When do the Christmas treats arrive in the workplace? Yup. Same schedule. Actually bring in Christmas treats during Christmastide and be accused of bringing in your leftovers (before I was disabled, I tried this, so I know!). And lots of folks have somehow come to believe the 12 days of Christmas refer to the 12 days leading up the Christmas rather than the 12 days after Christmas. We've had a struggle trying to convert our daughter's 12 chained countdown made as a school craft to being used during Christmas rather than before.
• Want to cut a Christmas tree in the National Forest Christmas Eve? Nope. Illegal. Have to do it by the second weekend in December.
• Christmas ends for most people at midnight, December 25. New Years is a separate and almost entirely secular celebration without any attempt to link it with the Christmas season.

But this is not supposed to be a gripe and groan session (hard to tell, aye?). Sometimes, howver, that's what current reality as it relates to our vision is. Now the questions becomes, how are we going to make this Christmas Tide 2-week Celebration happen?! Here's how we celebrate, starting with Advent. Much of what we do comes from a variety of German and Scottish family traditions as well as the marvilous book "To Dance with God" by Gertrud Nelson).

Advent

Christmas Eve
Breakfast: German: fresh baked pretzels and meat and cheese pretzle roll.
Decorate for Christmas: we do this as a family (because of my disability we don't have enough hands otherwise) -- Adding bows to greenery, Christmas decorations throughout the house, ornimants onto the tree.

Christmas Eve Dinner: Brats, red cabbage, potatoe salad and other German fare.
Kris Kringle brings the presents durring story time away from the Christmas room (family room), which is left dark.

La Posada: Krist Kindle bell calls us to gather for the La Posada. One of the lassies is Mary, and she is given baby Jesus to carry in her "belly" (looks recarkably like a pocket, while she, Joseph, the donkey, and the angel go seeking a place to spend the night. After the inn keeper of the first two stops refuses them, the third offers them the manger. The Christmas tree lights go up and we sing "Joy to the World" as Mary puts baby Jesus in the manger and Mary and Joseph arrive at the stable (reverse this).

Carols, Presents, Christmas Mass: More Christmas carols are sung. Then we break out the Christmas cookies. Then we open one or two presents each and its play time for the lassies to enjoy their new gifts. Barbara and the lassies go to afternoon, evening, or Christmas morning Mass, depending on what works best that year (I can't go because of my brain injury).

Christmas Day
After getting up: sing more Christmas carols (we do this each day before opening the presents for that day). Stockings were filled by Krist Kindle yesterday and are pilfered through now.
Scottish breakfast: porrage with cream, honey, and Scotch, black pudding, sausage, bacon, eggs, grapefruit etc... The rest of the day is a family day, with a walk, games, stories, etc... With a simple dinner so we don't have to cook that evening (feast foods happen throughout the season, but this frees Christmas day of the burden of extensive food prep.

Each Day of Christmas
Early morning: sing carols (and move the wise men, who began their journey Christmas Eve -- they arrive on Epiphany) and open a present (sometimes we all get one, sometimes it is a family present). This helps the feast last, helps each gift be more fully appreciated, and helps the focus of Christmas be Jesus, love, and relationship.

Feast foods, time off from work (as much as possible), gathering with family and friends (we try to not do this much during Advent)

In addition we add some thing on specific days:

New Years Eve - Holy Family - Family Reconciliation Service (I post more about this later), and typical New Years Eve things (we celebrate New Years on Scottish time so it's not a late night for lassies or brain injured.)

Epiphany: Wise men arrive to "We Three Kings" via procession through the house, Special presents saved for last day of Christmas Tide (sometimes related to travel), home blessing with "20 C+M+B 07" written over the inside of our main door (for Casper, Melkiar, and Baltazhar).

After Epipahny: clean up. Sing O Tannembaum, dance around the tree one last time, take everthing down in cleaning up for entering into ordinary time.

How do you join in the celebration of Christmas Tide? Use "comments" to share your traditions!

Merry Christ's Mass!
Patrick