As you may imagine, the day and time of Jesus’ birth was not accompanied by a birth announcement or a social media post. In the early years of Christianity, the main celebration was Easter, and it wasn’t until the fourth century that Christmas even became a thing. That’s when Pope Julius I chose a date and named the holiday we know as Christmas the “Feast of the Nativity”. By the end of the sixth century, the celebration of the birth of Christ had spread in some parts of what is now Europe.
The word Christmas comes from the old English term, Cristes maesse, meaning “Christ’s mass”. In the third century, Christian chronographers (recorders of historical information) believed that the creation of the world took place at the spring equinox – thought to be around March 25. Nine months from March 25 (the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb) to December 25 resulted in the birth of Christ. In the sixth century, the Church set both Christmas and the Epiphany as feast days on December 25 and January 6, respectively, and the 12 days of Christmas was instituted, better known as the Christmas season.
Advent is the beginning of the Church Liturgical Calendar and marks the time of preparation for the coming of Jesus into the world as an infant. The Advent season ends and the Christmas season begins on December 24, lasting three weeks.
The feast of the Holy Family is celebrated the Sunday after Christmas day. The Church celebrates this feast day to highlight the importance of family as the nucleus with Mary, Joseph and Jesus as our model so all families can aspire to live the way they lived.
The Epiphany is also celebrated during the Christmas season. Epiphany comes from the Greek word meaning “revelation from above”. This feast day commemorates the revelation that Jesus is God’s Son. Tradition associates it to the journey of the Three Wise Men who visited baby Jesus and brought Him gifts of gold (kingship), frankincense (divinity) and myrrh (humanity).
The baptism of Jesus is celebrated within the context of the Christmas season because of baptism’s close relationship with birth and infancy. In 1955, the Church assigned the feast of the baptism of our Lord to January 13, and soon after moved the celebration to the Sunday after the Epiphany.
Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the feast of the Lord's baptism in a homily:
“Jesus shows His solidarity with us, with our efforts to convert and to be rid of the selfishness, to break away from our sins in order to tell us that if we accept Him in our lives, He can uplift us and lead us to the heights of God the Father. And Jesus solidarity is not, as it were, a mere exercise of mind and will. Jesus truly immersed Himself in our human condition, lived it to the end, in all things save sin, and was able to understand our weakness and frailty. For this reason, He was moved to compassion, He chose to “suffer with” men and women, to become a penitent with us. This is God’s work which Jesus wanted to carry out: the divine mission to heal those who are wounded and give medicine to the sick, to take upon Himself the sin of the world.”
(Homily on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 2013, BENEDICT XVI)
To aid your journey in this Christmas season, consider praying with one of these three Nativity Scene Meditations: