![]() ![]() Shouldn’t I get to know the dates and ins-and-outs of the calendar of my other family, the Church? Through my baptism I became a daughter of God and a member of the Family of Christ. These dates have become familiar to me and even more dear than my original family dates. As the years progress, I’ve added my children’s birthdates, their sacrament anniversaries, and other milestone dates. ![]() When I was newly married, I added new celebrations to our calendar-my husband’s birthday, our anniversary, my in-laws’ birthdays and anniversaries. I am from a family of seven children, and I know and celebrate all the birthdays and anniversaries and even death anniversaries of all my siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I have always enjoyed studying and understanding the structure of the liturgical calendar. I wonder if it is mainly an argument of semantics? Is the dispute over the actual length of the Christmas Season, comparing the Ordinary Form calendar with the older 1962 Extraordinary Form (or even earlier calendars)? Or is the disagreement over the Christmas Cycle (or Period or Section) and not the actual liturgical Christmas season (also known as Christmastide)? Or is this about “tradition” (small “t”) not related to the Church, but a longstanding secular family or cultural custom? But every year someone will say that that they are following the traditional and official end of the Christmas season, February 2nd, 40 days after Christmas, which is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord or Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (commonly called Candlemas, in Greek Hypapante). ![]() Most of my friends will wait until after the Epiphany or after the Baptism of the Lord. Usually the discussion revolves around when to take down the Christmas decorations. It seems inevitable every Christmas that there will be polite disagreement among Catholics as to when the Christmas season officially ends. The Christmas season ended on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. ![]()
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