The Book of Days first came out in 1869. (We have the edition that was republished in 1967 at MPTC's Fond du Lac campus.)
I suppose that the print is too small for you to read the page above, but it is about the 12th day of Christmas, January 6th.
That is right. January 6th is the 12th day of Christmas. And the second paragraph tells us that "primitive Christians celebrated the Feast of the Nativity for twelve days."
You aren't a primitive Christian, maybe not a Christian at all, but if you're an American, I bet you still celebrate Christmas.
In case you didn't know, Christmas creep is the ongoing movement of Americans' observance of the end-of-year "holidays" towards an earlier and earlier point in time. Our retail stores have been desperately putting out their Christmas /New Year/ Kwanzaa /Hannukah/etc merchandise earlier and earlier, hoping to increase their sales. In my opinion, it is unfortunate that many of us have taken the bait.
I suppose that it doesn't really matter when you celebrate something. But I hear a lot of people complain that they don't like the high stress of preparing for the holidays..... then it seems those same people are relieved to take down their decorations on December 26th.
Maybe part of the problem - for a lot of us - is that we aren't comfortable spending time with various family members and other people in our lives that "the holidays" bring out of the woodwork. Or maybe by the time they've celebrated their chosen holiday, a lot of people realize that they've gained weight and need to take it easy on the partying. These problems that will probably always be with us are no excuse to sabotage your celebrations.
There is something meaningful about Christmas [or another holiday] for you, isn't there?
Make the holidays be about their true meaning as much as you possibly can. You won't be able to get rid of the stress entirely, but some of it might just be pressure that you're putting on yourself.
Happy Holidays from the MPTC Libraries!!!
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