When Does the Christmas Season Begin?

Today is Black Friday. The Christmas season has officially begun. Stores should wait until today to roll out their Christmas displays (not October!), and radio stations should wait until today to start playing non-stop Christmas music (not before Halloween!). Let’s get through Thanksgiving, and then it’s OK to start celebrating Christmas. After all, we don’t want Christmas to lose its significance.

This is, in a nutshell, what I have heard several people saying in the past few weeks. While I admire people (esp. Christians) wanting to preserve the significance of Christmas, it seems that many have allowed the culture, rather than the Church, to determine what Christmas is about.

For the Church, the Christmas season has traditionally begun with the nativity of Jesus on Christmas Eve. Today (the day after Thanksgiving) is not the first day of the Christmas season; Advent has not even begun yet. (It begins this Sunday.) After 4 weeks of waiting for the coming of Christ (while reliving the anticipation of the Old Testament for the promised Messiah, we await the Second Coming of our Lord), we then celebrate Christmas. Just as we prepare for Easter with 40 days of Lent, so we prepare for Christmas by the season of Advent. And like the Easter celebration does not last only one day but until the day of Pentecost, so the Christmas season does not last only one day, but lasts until Epiphany.

Sometimes I hear of Christians who want to boycott the cultural holiday. No Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, etc. Over the past few years, I myself have contemplated how to celebrate during this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do I celebrate Advent or do I celebrate a premature Christmas? Do I celebrate both at the same time? If I wait to celebrate Christmas until Dec. 25, people call me a Grinch if I don’t celebrate Christmas during Advent. (Yet, ironically, they don’t celebrate Christmas through the entire Christmas season.)

Here’s the solution I’ve come up with. It’s a working solution, meaning it may, and probably will, change over time.

From approximately Thanksgiving until New Years, I will observe the Christmas Shopping Season, the cultural “winter holiday.” I'll “be of good cheer” and sing fun carols like “Here comes Santa Claus” and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.” I'll watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other holiday classics. I’ll go to parties and participate in “white elephant” exchanges. I'll go shopping and send cards.

On December 26, when shoppers will be returning or exchanging presents, sorry that Christmas is over and the songs have stopped playing on the radio, when the world is moving on, I will be celebrating with Christians the Incarnation of our Lord – a celebration which continues through the 12 days of Christmas until Epiphany. I'll be singing the Christmas carols celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

This year, I plan to post weekly Advent reflections and daily reflections on each of the 12 days of the Christmas season. Until then, have a happy Thanksgiving weekend.