When do you take down your Christmas Tree?
December 26th? The Twelfth Night (5 January)? The Epiphany (Jan 6th)? Baptism of the Lord (Christmas liturgically ends with the Octave of the Epiphany, January 13th)? The Feast of the Purification (Candlemas, Feb 2nd, Christmas spiritually ends)?
(Those pine needles can often dictate the date!)
This, not Advent, is the true Christmas Season. As most people in secular or Protestantized countries are putting away "Christmas-y" things, and as shopping malls stop blaring "Here Comes Santa Claus," Catholics are just getting started. The cleaning and baking during penitential Advent pays off now, and the feasting and caroling begin!
We commemorate Christ in the desert for forty days, and just as after Easter we celebrate for forty days until the Ascension, after Christmas we celebrate the Child Jesus for forty days -- all through the season of Time After Epiphany -- until Candlemas.
Read more:
http://www.fisheaters.com/customschristmas1.html
