My Christmas decorations are still up. Even the lights on my house. Most glowing reindeer and illuminated Santas, stars and nativity scenes have long been taken down in my neighborhood, but not ours, not quite yet. (Rest assured, friends and neighbors that we will be taking them down this weekend. Not like the one year where we didn't get the Christmas lights down until close to Easter.) But before I put away the Christmas season for another year I'd like to just point out one teensy-weensy thing.
Christmas ain't over yet. Not quite. Technically, today is the TWELFTH day of Christmas. The last day of Christmas. "The Twelve Whatevers-Whatevering " in that Twelve Days of Christmas song. Better know in some circles as "Epiphany", the day we celebrate the Magi's journey to find the one born King.
So, you would actually earn extra credit in my book if you sang one more Sunday's worth of Christmas carols day after tomorrow and make the belabored point that while ADVENT was a month long, Christmas didn't start until December 25 and we still have some celebrating to do.
But we won't. Not most of us.
Sometimes I wonder if it's a So. Cal. thing like when people leave a ballgame in the seventh inning no matter the score because they want to beat the traffic. Other times, I expect we stop celebrating Christmas because most of us are just plain done. Put a fork in us. We are ready to get on with new year's diets and exercise programs to get rid of the holiday "baggage". We are ready to clean out the closets, prepare the tax returns, bid farewell to 2005 and look to the future.
Sure some of our New Year's Resolutions have already gone by the wayside, but we are ready to back to "normal" and into our "routine".
And truthfully, I am ready to get back to work, back to blogging, back to my triathlon training, back to prepping for sermons and leading my team. But before I do, I just want to linger here a little longer in front of my Christmas tree--er--tumbleweed, look at the lights that now seem more garish than glowing and sing one more chorus of Joy to the World so that I won't so easily "put away" what all this was about.
Let earth receieve her king.
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