today is still christmas

warning! a ‘religiousy’ post on jesus christ. do not proceed if you feel not obligated to.
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The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131. In Dutch it is Kerst-misse, in Latin Dies Natalis, whence comes the French Noël, and Italian Il natale; in German Weihnachtsfest, from the preceeding sacred vigil. The term Yule is of disputed origin. It is unconnected with any word meaning “wheel”. The name in Anglo-Saxon was geol, feast: geola, the name of a month (cf. Icelandic iol a feast in December).
(from new advent’s ‘origin of the word’)

surfing to many blogs, reading their posts or reading the comments readers left in the blogs, i notice that many people, when they drop a comment to wish the blogger merry christmas, most of them will say “i know it is late but i wish you merry christmas anyway”.

late? yes, if you consider only 25 dec. as christmas day… but my dears, i’m sure you have heard of the popular christmas carol, ‘the twelve days of christmas‘, right? the 12 days of christmas is not a ‘play play’ song or a kind of a folklore song. the christmas season really last for 12 days, so today or tomorrow, go ahead and wish others merry christmas BUT please without saying “i know it’s late but merry christmas anyway”.
some people though, after 25 dec. instead of wishing “merry christmas” will say “season’s greetings” or i remember a nun wishing “compliments of the season”!
read interesting facts about the 12 days of christmas, as in the 12 days of the season of christmas, not really about the song… though there is a mention of the song (the final part).

the 12th day, i.e. the last day of christmas falls on 6 jan. and 6 jan is the feast of the epiphany. this is where the 3 kings (or maggi) visited the baby jesus and present him with gifts. it is after 6 jan, that we took down the christmas decorations in our house (and also churches took down their decorations) as it is consider christmas season is over.

now speaking about christmas being the birthday of jesus christ, killuminati, in comments of my blog here, raised the question of the actual date of the birth of jesus. yes, nobody knows for sure the actual date of jesus’s birth but there had been theories here and there. if you care to read about christmas at the catholic encyclopedia (the same link i had right in the beginning), you will get an idea of what date was picked as the orginal birth date of jesus, and how it was later settled on 25 dec (read only the part on ‘early celebration’ and ‘origin of date’ ). it is an interesting read, though it might get quite ‘technical’ with all sorts of names/events mentioned (but no fear, there is always a link for you to find out further, if interested).

(picture shows the statue of the infant jesus, taken from atcc-torcc.org).

well, to me it doesn’t really matter when was jesus’ actual birth. the date 25 dec. was picked and we are using this date to commemorate the birth of our lord saviour, jesus christ; a day when god send his son, jesus to redeem us and give us salvation. most of all, we remember 25 dec as a day when god became flesh – a human being… like one of us. (see the ‘gospel’ reading on christmas day.)