The Day After Christmas

In my house growing up, the day after Christmas was barren and empty.  It was a day of erasing the magic and beauty of Christmas.  My mother hated Christmas.  The day after Christmas was a day of cleaning up the Christmas mess.  It was the day of taking down the tree (unless she could get it down on Christmas night after all the other family had left).  It was a day of packing away decorations and getting the holiday over with for another year.  I was never ready to throw the magic away like annoying Christmas candy wrappers you find around the house for a week after Christmas.

So, with my own family, I have always made it a point to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas.  We don't get presents for twelve days (although there are a few, small things that are arriving late this year, so there will be Twelve Days of Christmas presents this year).  That's not what Christmas is really about any way.  We do leave up our decorations until Jan. 6 is past.  We move the wise men in our Nativity scene closer to the stable each day.  Oh, and when Mardi Gras comes around, we celebrate it, too, in conjunction with Epiphany.  It's a meaningful way to keep the Christmas holiday and the Christmas spirit around instead of packing it away as though it never existed.