When does the Christmas season really end in the Church?

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the parish was taking away the decorations & giving away the poinsettas for free today after 12 noon mass

so that is a wrap on christmas
 
ConfusedLucy said:
Seeing a tree and singing carols does feel out of place.
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That is only because the secular world has dropped Advent and made Advent a Christmas shopping and party season. My wife and I don’t participate in this as best we can. If you really try to have an Advent, and avoid Christmas songs, then they don’t seem out of place during actual Christmas time.
 
Just pay attention to what color vestments the priest is wearing. When they go from white to green, you’ve entered Ordinary Time. 😉

But yes, today is the last day of the Christmas season as it is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Tomorrow, Ordinary Time begins.

So I hope everyone still has their decorations up. 😜

And just a side note, the Baptism of the Lord is normally the Sunday after Epiphany, except when the Epiphany falls on January 7th or 8th. In those years (such as this one), it is on the day after (i.e. Monday).
 
To be fair most churches seem to focus on advent rather than Christmas too, I’ve never seen any Christmas type activities advertised for after Christmas day.
 
Green on the altars today but trees are still up. 😃 Nativity, too. I’m happy. Technically, Christmas season ends today, the Baptism of the Lord, Monday.
 
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“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
 
All the decos were still up today . We still have Christmas!
 
After the Epiphany, there is the day we celebrate our Lord’s baptism. I would say this is the fith and last day.
 
The basic facts:
  1. In the Novus Ordo, Christmas ends on the Baptism, which is always the Sunday after Epiphany, except in countries where Epiphany is observed on the Sunday falling from 2-8 January, in which case the Baptism is observed on the Monday after (note: this was a change under John Paul II, not a rubric in the original Bugnini-edited calendar).
  2. In the Tridentine, Christmas ends on 13 January, no matter what day of the week 13 January is.
Commentary:
  1. Traditionally, 13 January was the date for the end of Christmas because that was the Octave of the Epiphany. In the 1962 system, the de facto Octave still remains (not de iure), and is now entitled “Commemoration of the Baptism”. The reason it says Commemoration and not Feast is because Epiphany is already the Feast of the Baptism.
  2. The Novus Ordo has 2 oddities in all this. First, the idea that Epiphany can move around on a Sunday, which destroys the tradition of the date 6 January (Twelfth Night and all that) not to mention creating a situation where the already short Christmas season can lose as many as 6 days; and second, calling the Baptism a feast when in fact the Epiphany is already the feast of the Baptism (this one is particularly ironic given the obsession of the Bugnini committee with removing duplications).
A further oddity is that in, say, the USA, if Epiphany falls on, say, Sunday, 7 January, the lesson in the Office for Saturday the 6th is supposed to be taken from the Baptism…because they never fixed the rubric after introducing the new rubric about observing the Baptism on Monday the 8th. So the reading for Monday the 8th repeats the reading for the 6th, and you get 2 Baptism readings flanking Epiphany…all very odd.

All of this is to say that the older system is neater and more logical than the new.

Lastly, yes, certain elements of “Christmas” survive until Candlemas, notably the traditional Marian antiphon, etc.
 
I’m in England, and the Baptism of Our Lord was celebrated yesterday (Monday the 8th January). This is because the Epiphany was moved to Sunday the 7th. Usually the Baptism falls on the Sunday after Epiphany, but if the Epiphany falls on a Saturday or Monday (which it did this year), then it is transferred to the adjacent Sunday and the Baptism is then transferred to the following Monday.

In the Divine Office, Christmastide finished yesterday after Evening Prayer II of the Baptism, and now we return to Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday.

However, my parish will continue to celebrate Christmas in a non-liturgical way (with the tree and the nativity scene remaining in church) until the Presentation of Our Lord.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
There were loads of kids yesterday asking why the tree was still up.
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I hope somebody set the kids straight that the tree is supposed to stay up through Epiphany. Many priests in my lifetime have expressed dismay at people who don’t realize the Christmas season is supposed to extend till the Wise Men arrive. I’ve heard several of them telling people not to throw their trees out the day after Christmas, etc.

Where I live, there are many Central/ Eastern European families who do not even celebrate the “gift-mas” day until January 6 - for them, Christmas is a religious holiday, and Jan. 6 is the gifting holiday because the Wise men brought gifts to Jesus that day. Several of my friends were just putting up the pictures of their kids opening presents last weekend.
 
Most of what you said makes sense, except for the part you say Epiphany is the feast of Baptism.

I am looking, right now, at my 1962 Missal and I see you are partially correct. To be more accurate, you should had said that the Baptism of Jesus Christ is part of the Epiphany.

Thanks for the heads up anyway. It helped clearing things up.
 
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Epiphany IS the feast of the Baptism. It is the feast of the triple manifestation: to the kings, at the Jordan, and at Cana. The traditional liturgy makes this abundantly clear. This is why January 13 was originally simply called the Octave Day, and even after the Octave was technically suppressed, it was renamed a Commemoration and not a Feast…because the “Feast” is 6 January.

It’s a subtle point, but it is of deep theological significance.
 
Jesus’ baptism is referred to in the Epiphany, as a manifestation of his divinity - along with the coming of the Magi, and the wedding at Cana.

But liturgically speaking, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus is a separate from the Solemnity of the Epiphany - they are celebrated on separate days.
 
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Please go back and read what I said.

In the TRADITIONAL calendar, there is no Baptism feast on 13 January. It is a commemoration, because Epiphany is already the feast of the Baptism.

In the Novus Ordo, there obviously IS a Baptism feast…which I noted is an anomaly and a duplication of sorts. In the original Bugnini calendar, if Epiphany fell on Sunday January 7 or 8, the separate Baptism feast was completely omitted. John Paul II added a rubric that it would be observed on Monday in such cases.
 
When I was a kid I always considered going back to school the end of Christmas season. It’s not a bad idea to teach kids that different parts world give gifts at different points of the season especially now the secular Christmas has really diverged from the Christian one.

To be fair the congregation are always reminded of this (we also get reminders about holy days of obligation) but I expect the kids don’t always remember.
 
The Epiphany commemorates the baptism? I thought that was in Eastern Orthodox and eastern Catholic churches.
I was always under the impression that the Epiphany at least in the Latin rite commemorates the visit of the Magi and thus the revealing of Christ to all nations.
 
jas84173 said:
The Epiphany commemorates the baptism? I thought that was in Eastern Orthodox and eastern Catholic churches.
I was always under the impression that the Epiphany at least in the Latin rite commemorates the visit of the Magi and thus the revealing of Christ to all nations.
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Epiphany marks three mysteries:

The visit of the Magi (i.e. the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles)
The Baptism in the Jordan;
The first miracle at the wedding in Cana.
 
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