Christmas-time at our House: part 10
I have mentioned several times that we have our big Christmas gift exchange actually AFTER Christmas Day. Weird, I know. But here’s why.
The focus of Christmas Day is on the birth of Jesus. We have a big birthday party and the whole shabang. We seperate our big gift exchange from that day so as not to confuse the issue.
There is a day that many denominations observe to commemorate the later arrival of the Wise Men bringing gifts to Jesus. That day is January 6th, and it’s called Epiphany. That’s the day we give our gifts to one another.
We are pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th, and that the particular day we choose to celebrate it probably comes from other pagan festivals. It is also the case with the day we celebrate the Kings coming to the Lord.
There are of course lots of theories about who the Wise Men were and when they actually arrived to see Jesus. Were there 3 of them, were they kings, did they come from the east? I don’t think we know those answers for sure. They likely didn’t arrive right at Christ’s birth and they probably didn’t visit Him in the stable. They did bring special, specific gifts and those are pretty well established.
So, what difference does any of it make?
Well, for us, we celebrate Epiphany to again bring the focus back to Jesus. We exchange gifts with one another on the day the church celebrates the coming of the Kings because the Wise Men brought Jesus gifts. So in a sense we are sharing gifts with the Jesus that lives inside of each other.
Some families go so far as to share 3 gifts a piece with each other – 3 gifts representing the 3 gifts brought by the Wise Men. We’re not quite that specific.
At our house on Epiphany (or the weekend-day closest, usually, since school is back in by that time), the Wise Men arrive at Bethelehem, ending their long journey around the house. That’s always fun for the kids to check and make sure they have made it there! Then we have breakfast together. We share our gifts with one another and talk about WHY we’re doing gifts at all, and WHY we’re doing gifts NOW. The kids are really enjoying the giving part of this as they are now selecting gifts for one another (instead of mom buying them and saying ‘This is what you’re giving your sister…’).
This is also the day that we like to share a nice meal together. (Bring out the ham, turkey, whatever a traditional Christmas dinner might look like.) But, of course, there’s a TWIST for us. We eat our special meal together while wearing crowns, like the Kings! Our first ones were just cut out of construction paper. We’ve picked up some around Halloween that are rather nicer, and can be packed away and brought out each year. (We need new ones next year – everyone’s head is getting too big!) We finish the meal with cupcakes in the shape of stars or with a big King Cake – in whatever shape we decide it should take.
We didn’t do it this year (because we were travelling) but in years past we’ve baked fun things INTO the cupcakes or cake. These things have included star charms, a toothpick, and a litle crown or a little plastic baby. The person who finds each thing gets to do special things. The one who discovers a star charm will help bake and decorate the next King Cake. Whoever gets the toothpick gets to conduct us in singing their favorite Christmas song (like a little conductors baton). The person who finds the crown or the baby gets to be king or queen for the day!
We discovered there are benefits we hadn’t expected from doing part of our Christmas celebration this way. In addition to the LONG holiday season we have, from American Thanksgiving through Epiphany, we also have the ability to purchase some of our gifts in the after Christmas and Boxing Day sales, at greatly reduced prices! We wouldn’t have chosen to do it this way strictly for this reason, but I’m very practical, so this is a great fringe benefit!
Our Christmas decorations come down either on this day or soon after, and our Holiday celebrations are tucked away for another year. Only 10.5 months to go before we get to start over again!
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