~12 Days of Christmas ~
Would anyone from a tradition that celebrates Epiphany or the 12 Days of Christmas care to share how they do this? Why it is meaningful to their family? As mentioned earlier, one of the devotionals I bought contains readings for these 12 days and they seem like a good way to gradually come down from the fun of nightly Advent readings. They also seem meaningful.
I bought a book called *The 12 Days of Christmas* - while at Amazon to buy it I read the reviews. Goodness, there is one man there who has commented negatively on just about any book on children's Christmas symbols that are currently popular. {G} This led me to snopes - which backs up this mans claim that basically the stories of the chatecism being taught through the song the 12 days of Christmas is bunk.....and the Candy cane legend is bunk...as are the trees, ornaments... all that we've been learning this month. ::snort:: This was bothering me until I realized that there is nothing wrong with taking a secular emblem and finding religious significance in it...shoot the reverse happens all the time. Witness the transformation of the rainbow from a religious symbol of God's promise not to destroy the earth with flood again....a symbol that God keeps his promises/covenants...to a secular symbol of diversity and gay pride. In other words - we can STILL teach our children great truth from the secular symbols...regardless of whether they were originally intended that way. I'm not saying we should ignore history, or teach falsehoods to our children. For instance I can say, "Some people see the white and red in a candy cane standing for purity and Christ's blood. Isn't it cool that it's in the shape of a J?" I can present these things, my children can make the connections - there is nothing wrong with this in my view. I won't say "These were MADE to show this" because that may be a legend...but I will read the Legend of the Candy Cane to my children with a clear conscience. LOL
Thoughts?
5 comments:
DeEtta,
In Lisa Welchels (sp?) book "The ADVENTure of Christmas" she says that she wanted to put more Christ in Christmas and so takes the symbols and points them to Christ. I see nothing wrong with this. I read my kids the legends and tell them that they are stories but also show them how they can choose to honor Christ through anything and how Christmas was made to counteract a pagan holiday. I have done little advent teaching this year so have little to say on what I have found as legend or not, but I intend to do some this week with my kiddos so thanks for the heads up. I am on my way to snopes now.
I have to agree that there is nothing wrong with taking modern symbols and showing how they can point to Christ. As you said, there are certainly many Christian symbols that have been perverted to secular symbols.
We have never done epiphany, but I think it might be a great way to slowly unwind from Christmas...sort of like the cool down after your workout.
We used to celebrate Epiphany as our family Christmas time and then Christmas was for the extended part of our family. It was so fun and I used to get the girls' gifts on sale! I do have a couple books on the 12 days of Christmas and the girls talked about how fun that was, but with the public school schedule, it is much more difficult because they are back in school by that time. We will read our books, though.
Diann
Our church sent the children home from the children's program last night w/candy cane taped to the the story of its symbolism.
I like the legends of the Christmas tree/Christ and the candy cane, etc. I share them w/our children. They like and learn from hands on object lessons.
We have three calendars we pull out and start counting down Christmas. We make cc cookies for Santa XMas eve and then we cuddle up and read the story of Jesus from the bible.
Hey DeEtta,
Not sure how much help I can be as I *think* the tradition you mean is Eastern Orthodox. However...that never stopped me from giving a opinion. {g}
It's important to separate the traditional feast of Christmas being from Christmas Day (or Eve) until Epiphany from the somewhat daft song. They are really not connected at all.
When I read the explanation in the Christmas Symbols book about it being a way that persecuted RC's were taught their faith during protestant rule in England, I laughed my socks off. That's such nonsense. For a start, is it only RC's who believe in the 10 commandments or the 11 faithful apostles? Ridiculous.
Anyway, here in England, it is traditionally the period from CDay till Jan 6th that we 'celebrate' and then all decorations are taken down on the 6th, which is one of the remaining commonly done traditions of Epiphany, I guess. Things have changed so much since WW2 that we are losing that specifically identifiable Christmas period here.
Anyway, that's my excuse for not being anywhere near ready for Christmas yet. LOL!
Dorothy
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