Analog-Theater 2.0

Bill O’reilly is upset because people are saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”.  However, I think he is forgetting that there is more than just Christmas.  Aside from Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, and the winter solace there are several Christian holy days.  The Twelve Days of Christmas or Christmastide was a collection of those holy days and at one point Christmas was not the most important of them.

Modern American marketing and media tend to have the erroneous belief that the Twelve Days of Christmas start on December 14^th and end on Christmas Day. However, throughout the Middle Ages, through the Colonial Americas, and in certain Christian communities still practice the original tradition of the Christmastide which begins on Christmas Day and continues to January 5^th (The Theophany).

During the Middle Ages, this period was on of continual feasting and celebrating, which reached a climax on the Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas season. William Shakespeare used this day as the setting of his play “Twelfth Night”. Usually a Lord of Misrule was appointed by lot to preside over the festivities, until it was abolished in 1431.

When the colonists arrived in New World, they brought their version of the Twelve Days with them from England and adapted them to their new country. For example, they began the tradition of making Christmas wreaths using the local greenery and fruits and hung them on the front door of their homes on Christmas night.

At the end of the Christmastide, all the decorations would be taken down and the last of the Christmas food would be eaten.

The Holy Innocents’ Day or Childermas is one of the feast days during Christmastide, though the date varies between different churches. It is celebrated on the 27^th, 28^th, or 29^th of December. This day is to remember the deaths of the countless children who were massacred by Herod when he tried to kill the baby Jesus. Various Catholic countries had a tradition (which is no longer widely practiced) of the reversal of roles between children and adults, including alter boys taking over as the bishops.

January 1^st is the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, a celebration of the when an eight day old Jesus was circumcised, shedding blood for the first time beginning the process that would be the salvation of mankind, and also showing the world that he was mortal. The feast was never a major feast day and was replaced in 1960 by the Octave of the Nativity.

The Theophany, the last day of the Christmastide, is a day of fasting in preparation for the Epiphany.  It also includes a commemoration of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.  While originally a day of fasting in the early Christian church, it evolved into the Twelfth Night, a day of feasting and partying.

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