When I was a child, my father always bought a live Christmas tree. He was an old school Italian. So, our tree came down only after Epiphany. He wanted everyone to enjoy the full season of Christmas – all twelve days. (To this day, I actually say to people because of my father’s commitment to and love of Christmas, “Merry Christmas, all twelve days.”)
Just thinking about that time, I can smell the scent of post-Christmas fir tree wafting in the air after our tree’s removal. The occasional needle might be discovered lingering in the rug or my clothing for a few weeks following. Christmas seems to have wanted to stay. Yet, even as the signs of our times might change, Christmas does not have to leave. I take comfort in old Scrooge’s conversion in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as he says, “I will honor 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.”
I suspect Scrooge’s policy is a pretty good one to follow. In life, it can too often seem like darkness is on the verge of surrounding us, if not consuming us. Yet as others have written, “The Light we’ve celebrated is still with us,” thus we can choose to stand up to the darkness with its help. Indeed, this Light beckons us forward in confidence, because the world also needs the Light. Through the power of our faith and baptism, we can choose to be merry all year long as in the original Anglo-Saxon sense of being “brave and spirited.” We can strive to reflect the light rather than fear any darkness. For the Light which is Jesus wills to become born into our world – in a sense, incarnate in and through us – whenever we chose to love as we have been loved first (1 John 4:19).
The poem, “The Work of Christmas,” by Howard Thurman comes to my mind:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
So, take heart, dear Church. Christmas and Epiphany has passed by us once again, but our time of celebration is only beginning. Christ’s gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love remain within reach. Just hold on in faith, wait, and see.
This reflection was originally published in the January 7, 2025 weekly newsletter, the Hub, of Christ Lutheran Church, Fredericksburg, VA.
© 2025 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author.
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