Christmas Carols and Christmas calendar

One of the developments of our contemporary society with its public emphasis on buying for Christmas gifts (I think it has been called the economic stimulus festival), is that Christmas disappears on December 26.   The Christmas celebration at a minimum is supposed to encompass the 12 days of Christmas (December 25-January 6) and, in religious tradition, the longer season of December 25 to February 2 (presentation of Jesus in the Temple as an infant).

As has been pointed out by many, Christmas Carols will disappear on December 26.  Many take down their trees at the same time.

While we have been hearing Christmas carols and songs for a couple of months, and Hallmark has been showing Christmas films since Halloween (I love these, by the way), tomorrow it will all disappear.

For those of us who are religious, there are perhaps two Christmases to celebrate:  the commemoration of the birth of Jesus  and the secular end of the year celebrations.   For many in our society, there is only the secular festival of family gatherings and gift giving.   For our businesses, there is only holiday -- the holiday of spending.  I have gotten daily e-mails about the 12 days of Christmas which have been transformed into shoppers' deals in the 12 days leading up to Christmas.   This sense of the 12 days is far from the original meaning of the 12 days of Christmas which were the celebration of the days from December 25 to January 6.     The latter has historically other meanings as well, since that calendar joins the western and eastern calendars (Christmas is January 7 in the eastern Christian calendar).   There is also a myth that the 12 days of Christmas was a symbolic way that Catholics could secretly observe Christmas  during the period in England when the Anglican Church suppressed Catholic worship.    The term Roman Catholic was invented by the English in order to assert their claim of the Church of England as the Anglo Catholic Church.   (The term Roman Catholic does not exist in other languages, where the term Catholic Church is used.)