Christmas trees in the snow already?????

Greetings,

I saw Christmas trees in the front of people's houses ready for pick up.  As a Catholic this surprizes me because Christmas has just begun.   Here is how a Catholic celebrates Christmas:

1.  First of all we celebrate the season of Advent during the month of December.  If you notice, in church we sang advent songs every Sunday, but NEVER Christmas songs.   Advent is a time of preparation.  We decorate our houses with an Advent Wreath, and perhaps we have a Jesse Tree.   This should be preparation to build anticipation.  Christmas is right before us, but we don't have it yet.

2.  Christmas Eve, or some time that week before we begin to decorate.  This enhances the anticipation.   At this time it would be great to have the Christmas Tree finally up, but do not turn the lights on.  Everyone will want it on, but we wait.

3.  Then we go to Mass for Christmas.  Upon returning from Mass the lights go on and Advent is over and we begin to celebrate Christmas.   Now is when we turn on the Christmas Music, and eat the Christmas food, and share the gifts.   It is now Christmas so this is when we celebrate Christmas.  Then after Christmas catholics have the OCTAVE of Christmas, and the Twelve Days of Christmas.

When I was young we never decorated our tree until Christmas Eve.  Sometime in the early 1970s that all changed.

The Octave of Christmas:

Scripturally, there were 7 days of Creation.  Then jewish people rested on the 7th day which was the Sabbath(Saturday).   For Christians, will we often add a day:  the 8th day is when God RE-CREATED the world in the Order of GRACE through Jesus Christ.  We celebrate the 8th day(Sunday, the day after saturday) as our day of celebrating the Resurrection.   Baptismal fonts traditionally are octogons celebrating recreation.   So 8 is the number for the recreation of the universe in the order of GRACE.   Because of this, after certain Holiday we should celebrate them with intensity for 8 days straight.  This is Called the Octave.

There is an The Octave of Christmas begins with Christmas day, and we should celebrate the FEAST every day in a very intense way.  The Octave day(the last day of the octave) is January 1st, the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God.  This was traditionally the day we celebrate Mary naming Jesus(feast of the Holy name of Jesus), but his has been moved recently to January 3rd.  Keep celebrating Christmas in an INTENSE way during the Octave.

The Twelve Days of Christmas:

We know this from the Song.  The 12 days are AFTER Christamas, NOT before Christmas.   It goes from Christmas day to  January 6th, the traditional day to celebrate Epiphany(feast of three kings).  It would be great to keep your celebration of Christmas at least until after Epiphany.  This means that Catholics, if they are living according to the LITURGICAL Calendar would take down their Christmas decorations sometime from January 7th to 9th.

Secular Christmas:

Most people begin to celebrate Christmas at the end of November or beginning of December.  They skip Advent, and are already tired of Christmas by the time it arrives.   This is because STORES want to sell you stuff for Christmas so they begin the celebration as a Marketing ploy to make money.   As Christians we need to ask ourselves whether we celebrate Religious Christmas of the Birth of Christ in a Christian way, or a Secular Christmas revolving around the profit margins of stores.  We all have a choice.  The question is:  What do we choose?

peace