
All the way back in 2016, my church decided it was time to begin our
“Really not appropriate to schedule a fast for a feast day,” I pointed out to one of my fellow church attendees.
- SHE. “Feast day? This is a feast day?”
- ME. “It’s still Christmas.”
- SHE. “Christmas was two Fridays ago.”
- ME. “Christmas began two Fridays ago. And ends tomorrow.
It lasts 12 days, remember? ” - SHE. “What lasts 12 days?”
- ME. “Christmas. Remember the song? ‘On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…’ and each day the singer just kept getting more and more birds? ’Cause Christmas has 12 days.”
- SHE. “Who celebrates it for 12 days?”
- ME. “I celebrate it for 12 days. I’m still eating cookies.”
- SHE. “Well, you can do that if you like. I took the tree down the day after Christmas.”
- ME. “You mean the second day of Christmas.”
- SHE. [irritated scoff]
Tell many a Christian that today’s the 11th day of Christmas, and that’s the response you’ll get from them. The irritated scoff. Christmas ended last month. And good riddance. They were so done with the holiday once Christmas dinner was over. And if they weren’t, the hassle of returning Christmas gifts did it for ’em.
Like I said
But if you’ve burnt out on Christmas, it’s because you’ve not really been celebrating Christmas. You’ve been celebrating the awful
In fact Christmas is primarily about how
Deficient in joy.
You might remember
Either way, Christmas isn’t a time of comfort and joy to them. It’s something you gotta put up with, because our culture insists upon it. All the gaudy decorations. All the peppermint, cranberry, egg nog, or pumpkin-infused foods and drinks. Ditching the perfectly good music so we can listen to every popular musician test out their vocal range on “O Holy Night.” Ditching the perfectly good
And
It’s a time of testing the boundaries of one’s patience, so man are they glad it’s over.
So when I inform ’em it’s not over, they’re a little pissed at me. They go into denial: Christmas is over. We don’t do 12 days of Christmas anymore; that’s an old custom,
It exposes their lack of joy.
And love, and grace, and kindness, and other fruit of the Spirit. That stuff hasn’t been naturally pouring out of ’em all December. They were gritting their teeth and making nice, regardless of their frustration. They weren’t rejoicing at the coming of Christ, which reminds us of how Jesus came into our lives, and how Jesus is returning to set up his kingdom. That story, to them, is merely a story. And now that the 25th has passed, it’s time to put the nativity crêche back into its box, and put the box back into the back corner of the garage. And a merry “bah, humbug” to you.
If the Holy Spirit isn’t helping you generate genuine fruit, especially during advent and Christmas, start asking why. Ask him for help. Ask him to get rid of your bad attitudes and replace ’em with his good ones. Ask him how you should feel, how you should see things this time of year, how you should be the corrective to our culture’s weird behavior in December. He expects us to be
You know those saps who say, “I wish it were Christmas all year round”? Some of ’em mean it only because they wish they’d receive Christmas presents all year round; ignore them. The rest of them wish it were so because they’ve actually experienced joy and grace.
Well, it’s not Christmas year-round, but it is Christmas 12 days. Including today and tomorrow. Have you experienced joy and grace? If so, share it. If not…

