Friday, December 28, 2007

Keep Those Christmas Decorations Up!

Toblog is going to jump into the fray over when to put up and when to take down Christmas decorations. Already the day after Christmas some citizens in our fair town were taking down their decorations. Of course, these same people had put them up by Halloween. Naturally, everyone is free to do whatever they want but what is the tradition here? Why have some put up decorations earlier and earlier? What is the reason many of us still put up decorations later and keep them up through the middle of January? All the "non-controversial" questions of commercialism versus Christian traditions come into play on this one.

The Christmas tradition that many of us grew up with had outside decorations going up in early December. And, the tree went up a week before Christmas or even on Christmas eve. Our schedule followed the traditional calender which celebrates Christmas through Epiphany (the 12th day after Christmas when the three kings arrived in Bethlehem). Using the even older Julian calender, we could keep our decorations up even longer to celebrate with our Russian Orthodox and Egyptian Coptic coreligionists. Their calender doesn't celebrate Christmas until January 7th . Of course, you need to add on the 12 days of Christmas to get to the Julian calender Epiphany. This gives you a perfect excuse to keep the holiday going until January 19th. This is a celebration with its focus on the reason for the season.

Of course, commercial interests have pushed the holiday earlier and earlier each year. Commercial Christmas once began on or right after Thanksgiving when many city and town parades ushered in the season with parades featuring Santa's arrival. Now, it's right after Halloween and many of our neighbors have jumped on the bandwagon. By Christmas itself, they are thoroughly tired of their decorations and down they come the day after. What a shame .

We as a people ought to hold on to traditions that help define our life. We shouldn't be so quick to give up centuries old celebrations in order to fatten the corporate bottom line.

It's still Christmas as far as I'm concerned. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!