Keeping a Long Christmas

"Certainly, nostalgia is one of the three major elements that should characterize our celebrations. But the second is hope for the future, while the third is the perennial and eternal nature of the things we celebrate."

From Crisis

By Charles Coulombe, KC*SS, STM

“Holiday creep,” which begins earlier every year is not motivated solely by a desire for profits. The unconscious sense that things are dreadfully awry provokes an equally unconscious desire to escape into the land of nostalgia.

King Arthur lay at Camelot upon a Christmas-tide, with many a gallant lord and lovely lady…then they brought the first course, with the blast of trumpets and the waving of banners, with the sound of drums and pipes, so that many a heart was uplifted at the melody. Costly and most delicious foods were carried in. Many were the dainties, delicacies and fresh meats, so great was the plenty they might scarce find room on the board and table-cloth to set all the silver dishes. Each helped himself as he liked best, and for each of two guests were twelve dishes served, with a great plenty of beer and bright wine. (“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”)

At last, the election year of 2024 is crawling toward its close. Many are joyous that Trump won; others are dismayed. In Europe, the Ukraine War continues, while the feckless political leadership from London to Vienna are more concerned with destroying both dissent and the farming sector than they are with public safety. The less said about most of what comes from the Holy See at the moment, the better. So, what does the tag end of this year leave us with? The obligation to try to celebrate the very best Advent and Christmas seasons of our entire lives!

Of course, thanks to the maneuvers of the retailers, we are faced with a “Holiday” season that stretches from Halloween to St. Valentine’s Day. While ignoring the Penitential season of Advent, it must be noted that this “holiday creep,” which has begun earlier every year—the first Halloween things in stores appear in late July—is not motivated solely by a desire for profits. The unconscious sense that things are dreadfully awry provokes, on the part of a public denied any real means of expression, an equally unconscious desire to escape into the land of nostalgia—and can there be anything more nostalgic than Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas?

But let us turn our attention in particular to Christmas and Advent. Certainly, nostalgia is one of the three major elements that should characterize our celebrations. But the second is hope for the future, while the third is the perennial and eternal nature of the things we celebrate. 

On the one hand, we think, as we should, of Christmases past—of departed family and friends, and of our own excitement for a world that was strange, new, and exciting. In the here and now, the young people we see cannot help but remind us that there is a future ahead to be assisted—and those same young people shall one day reminisce about us with folk as yet unborn or thought of. But beyond that, everything from the sublime to the ridiculous—from the liturgies of the season to the old Christmas specials—reminds us that we are celebrating something that at once firmly anchors our own lives in time and yet, in itself, is outside of time, for all that it commemorates a very specific occurrence on a given date in history. 

So, how to approach Advent and Christmas in a way that will be new and yet traditional, anchored in the familiar and yet new and exciting? Well, the Catholic should always try to keep Advent as a sort of little Lent—not as penitential, to be sure, but nevertheless making a clear contrast to the celebrations that shall follow on Christmas itself, and the following days. If we can avoid putting up any decorations in our homes save the Christmas cards and a creche lacking both the Infant Jesus and the Three Kings, thus shall be a start.

But beyond that, let us take stock of the neighborhood wherein we live. Obviously, we have a church where we regularly attend Mass and presumably intend to spend most of our liturgical experiences this year. But our experience and understanding of the season can be expanded tremendously if we look at what alternatives we may have in this area, depending upon what we are used to. Are there Latin Mass or Ordinariate communities? Ethnic parishes, catering to Latin Rite nationalities other than our own? Eastern Rite parishes—whose communities are as different from each other as they are from the Western Rite?

Taking Advent alone for a very tiny sampler, Ordinariate Parishes often offer Advent Services of Lessons and Carols. Such services are common in the Anglican/Episcopal church, and it is wonderful to enjoy them in Catholic settings! Central European ethnic parishes often feature candlelit Rorate Masses during Advent, while Filipino ones will host the Simbang Gabi or Misa de Gallo—both uniquely joyful experiences. Hispanic Catholic churches will sometimes host the “Shepherds’ Play”—Los Pastores—and even more often reenact the Holy Family’s search for shelter—Las Posadas. The Missa Aurea, the “Golden Mass” of the Ember Wednesday, is slowly coming back here and there. Gaudete Sunday’s Old Rose—not Pink—vestments are still seen in many places.

But there are less elevated events to be looked into. Very often, open-air museums (like Colonial Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village) offer their take on “Old Fashioned” Christmases. Even Riley’s Farm in Southern California has a “Colonial Christmas” modeled on the English colonies; a truly Californian Colonial Christmas would feature Hispanic celebrations from various Missions and Ranchos.  But strict accuracy is not as important as adding to the general merriment of the time. So, too, with the various historic house museums and public parks and gardens. Many smaller towns and villages have community carol sings and the like. Even if one is not tempted by such events, supporting them is a good way of inserting Christmas into everything.

One might also explore other Christmas food and drink than one is used to. Sure, we all love our turkey and eggnog. But how about mince pie and a Tom and Jerry. Although rare today, the latter was once a staple of the yuletide table. As Damon Runyon observed in “Dancing Dan’s Christmas,” 

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true. 

Now hard to find outside the Upper Midwest at wintertime, this writer can assure his readers that it is worth the search. The world’s cuisines offer an endless supply of new Christmastime foods to try.

When Christmas Eve at last arrives, a whole world of celebration opens up—and if we have tried to keep Advent, we shall not find ourselves tired of the feast already, as so many of our secular friends are. While our attendance at the liturgical rites the Church offers are essential, Dom Guéranger himself—the liturgist par excellence—reminds us of how important the customs that have grown up around the feast and its season really are: 

In several countries of Europe, our own among the rest, the custom has been kept up of wishing a Happy Christmas, which was the ancient salutation when this Feast was the beginning of a new year. Hence too, in these countries, the custom of making presents, of writing letters of good wishes, and other friendly acts. How many of our practices of everyday life have originated from Faith, and yet are looked upon as mere consequences of natural good-feeling, or even compliments which society requires us to pay to each other!

Now, while the details of celebrations on Christmas Eve vary wildly from place to place, they traditionally involved preparing for the feast the next day and then departing for Midnight Mass. Once again, Dom Guéranger, the father of the Liturgical Movement, tells us how important these paraliturgical customs are for the Catholic: 

How often have we not ourselves been charmed at seeing the traditions of the old Catholic customs still kept up in some families, especially in those favoured parts of the country, where heresy has not been able to corrupt the simplicity of the people. We have seen, and it is one of the most pleasing recollections of our childhood, one of these families seated together, after the frugal evening collation, round a blazing fireside, waiting for the hour to come when the whole house was to go to the Midnight Mass. A plain but savory supper, which was to be eaten on their return home, and so added to the joy of holy Christmas Night, was prepared beforehand. A huge piece of wood, called the Yule-Log, was burning cheerfully on the hearth; it would last until the Mass was over, and warm the old men and the little children, as they came in chilled by the sharp frost.

Meanwhile, until it was time for Mass, their conversation was upon the Mystery of this much-loved Night. They compassionated the Blessed Mother and the sweet Babe, exposed to the inclemency of winter weather, and with no other shelter than that of a wretched stable. Then, too, there were the Christmas Carols, in the practice of which they had spent many a pleasant evening of Advent. The whole soul was evidently in these dear old melodies, and many a tear would fall as the song went on to tell how the Angel Gabriel visited Mary, and declared to her that she was to be Mother of the Most High God; how Mary and Joseph were worn with fatigue, going from street to street in Bethlehem, trying to find a lodging, and no one would take them in; how they were obliged to shelter in a stable, and how the Divine Child was born in it; how the loveliness of the Babe in his little crib was above all the beauty of the Angels; how the Shepherds went to see him, and took their humble gifts, and played their rude music, and adored him in the faith of their simple hearts. And thus they spent the happy Eve, passing from conversation to song, and from one song to another, and all was on Mary or Jesus, Joseph or Bethlehem. Cares of life were forgotten, troubles were gone, melancholy was a sin; but it was time to leave; the village clock had just gone eleven; and of the happy group, there was a little one who had been too young the other years, and this was his first Midnight Mass. There was no brighter face in the procession than his. Would he ever forget that beautiful Night!

In many of our readers, these reminiscences will excite a feeling of regret that the miseries of the world around us make such Catholic customs as these unrealities: at all events, they will show how the holiest feelings of religion may blend with the best joys of family and home. The lesson is worth learning, though the examples that teach it are too Catholic for these rough times. 

Here one may say that the good Benedictine was not infallible; for with modern technology, living in a country to which Catholics from every part of the world have come, we have an endless ability to explore such customs and make them part of our homes.

But we must try to keep up the jollity through the Twelve Days—the following day, St. Stephen’s Day or Boxing Day should just be the beginning, not the end—with New Year’s Eve and Day halfway points on the road of observance and celebration. At last comes Twelfth Night and then the Epiphany. Here, too, are innumerable customs to savor across the Catholic world. Here, too, at the conclusion of these twelve holy nights, Dom Guéranger has an important lesson for us: 

There was another custom, which originated in the Ages of Faith, and which is still observed in many countries. In honour of the Three Kings, who came from the East to adore the Babe of Bethlehem, each family chose one of its members to be King. The choice was thus made. The family kept a feast, which was an allusion to the third of the Epiphany Mysteries—the Feast of Cana in Galilee—a Cake was served up, and he who took the piece which had a certain secret mark, was proclaimed the King of the day. Two portions of the cake were reserved for the poor, in whom honour was thus paid to the Infant Jesus and his Blessed Mother; for, on this Day of the triumph of Him, who, though King, was humble and poor, it was fitting that the poor should have a share in the general joy. The happiness of home was here, as in so many other instances, blended with the sacredness of Religion. This custom of King’s Feast brought relations and friends together, and encouraged feelings of kindness and charity. Human weakness would sometimes, perhaps, show itself during these hours of holiday-making; but the idea and sentiment and spirit of the whole feast was profoundly Catholic, and that was sufficient guarantee to innocence.

King’s Feast is still a Christmas joy in thousands of families; and happy those where it is kept in the Christian spirit which first originated it! For the last three hundred years, a puritanical zeal has decried these simple customs, wherein the seriousness of religion and the home enjoyments of certain Festivals were blended together. The traditions of Christian family rejoicings have been blamed under pretexts of abuse; as though a recreation, in which religion had no share and no influence, were less open to intemperance and sin. Others have pretended, (though with little or no foundation,) that the Twelfth Cake and the custom of choosing a King, are mere imitations of the ancient pagan Saturnalia. Granting this to be correct, (which it is not,) we would answer, that many of the old pagan customs have undergone a Christian transformation, and no one thinks of refusing to accept them thus purified. All this mistaken zeal has produced the sad effect of divorcing the Church from family life and customs, of excluding every religious manifestation from our traditions, and of bringing about what is so pompously called, (though the word is expressive enough,) the secularisation of society.

In a word, by keeping Christmas so well as we can in our homes and families—and even our solitary apartments if we live alone—we can begin to reverse that secularization, which has brought us to the revolting state in which we find ourselves. Moreover, we can do so through the combination of supernatural faith and innocent joy. Can there be any better weapons, more pleasant to wield? But do not let us stop with the glorious feasts of the Epiphany! Let us carry on through the whole month of January to that blessed feast of Candlemas. Indeed, the time after Epiphany merges into the season of Septuagesima on the Traditional and Ordinariate calendars; in a sense, Mardi Gras is the very last gasp of Christmas. Then begins Lent, and the opportunity to bud our domestic churches and witness to the Faith before the whole world in a very different way.