![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Maybe it's just me, but I think it's kinda cool how the Gregorian and Julian calendars are lined up: no sooner does Catholic and Protestant Christmas end, than Orthodox[*] Christmas begins. What with the twelve days, Epiphany/Theophany, and Christmas Eve, twice each, that's a straight three and a half weeks of Christmas!
(Which, uh, gives me more time to come up with gift ideas and argue that they're "technically not late" ...)
Note that I'm not counting Advent as part of Christmas. If you do, then add on the extra days accordingly. And no, I don't really have an excuse for celebrating Christmas in both calendars -- Mom is Orthodox and Dad was Methodist, but most Greek Orthodox churches are "new calendar"[*], and I just peeked at a web page showing government holidays in Cyprus and they're using the new calendar (I still get to celebrate Easter twice, and that's the more important holiday anyhow) -- but I'm just rather amused by the concept of "nearly a month straight of Christmas", and felt like sharing that amusement. And there are a couple of Russian Orthodox congregations around here (which do celebrate Christmas according to the old calendar), that I can use for cover. :-)
Note also that this alignment works until the end of this Century, after which the two calendars will be one day farther apart. But if you count Christmas Eve as "part of Christmas", you can still call it an uninterrupted not-quite-a-month of Christmas. I'll most likely be dead by then (not that I'd be unhappy about living to 136 years old), so I won't be taking sides in any arguments about that then.
| 2006-12-24 | Gregorian Christmas Eve |
| 2006-12-25 | Gregorian first day of Christmas |
| 2006-12-26 | Boxing Day |
| 2006-12-27 to 2007-01-04 | ... third through eleventh days of Christmas |
| 2007-01-05 | Gregorian Twelfth Night |
| 2007-01-06 | Gregorian Epiphany (aka Three Kings Day) also old-calendar-Orthodox[**] (Julian) Christmas Eve |
| 2007-01-07 | Orthodox (Julian) first day of Christmas |
| 2007-01-08 to 2007-01-17 | Orthodox 2nd through 11th days of Christmas |
| 2007-01-18 | Orthodox Twelfth Night |
| 2007-01-19 | Orthodox Theophany |
And some of you thought you were sick of Christmas carols before ... Heh.
[*] Some Orthodox churches use the Gregorian calendar for fixed holidays while still using the Julian calendar for calculating the dates of Easter/Lent/etc.; other Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar for all holidays. So there are three Christian calendars to keep track of if you want to know who's celebrating what when: straight Julian (old-calendar Orthodox), straight Gregorian (Catholic and Protestant), and Gregorian-except-for-Easter-and-holidays-related-to-it (new-calendar Orthodox). Hmm. I'd assumed that other faiths have one calendar each, but now I'm wondering whether any other religions have a calendar situation like this.
[**] I'm going to get lazy and just write "Orthodox" from here on in this table to refer to specifically old-calendar Orthodox. I'll trust y'all to have read the first footnote already.
(no subject)
Christmas can't leave fast enough for me. If it would do me the favour of not coming back from wherever it goes when it's gone, I'd be really happy.
Don't call me a Scrooge or a Grinch; both those wimps copped out in the end.
The Muzak in the grocery store was playing "Santa Baby" today, which is a song that must have its existence erased, and it's after Christmas. That shit should stop at sundown on the 25th.
(no subject)
(Or we could do as some countries do, and expect Santa on St. Nicholas' Day, and get the cutesy songs completely out of the way at the begining of December...)
(no subject)
(no subject)
It's the commercials setting banal jingles to Christmas melodies that would drive me nuts over that kind of timespan.
oh, yeah, and...
But between the Christmas music starting around Halloween this year, its all I can do to go out in public from November to January. I don't mind the non-humorous music - but anything with Santa in it, should be... I can't think of anything bad enough to do to it. Please, even church music for all of december and part of january would be okay with me (I can't allow it in November though, I'm sorry, not if it mentions anything to do with Christmas) in any language whatsoever, but no Santas, no reindeer, no white anything- and I am really bugged that most of those songs appear to have been written by my (at least nominal) co-religionists.
Please, can't we put the Christ back in Christmas?
(no subject)
One, for the undereducated non-Christian: Is BOxing day a religious holiday? I thought it was some British historical celebration. Gues not. SOmeone want to enlighten me?
Seocnd: other religious calendar problems: Jews technically have only one calendar according to which all our holidays fall. It's a lunar calendar joined to a solar calendar ( nevertheless over time, it get s further and further away from the right time of year -I wonder if a few hundred years from now rabbis are going to have to undo the calendar and go back to going according to people assigned to witnessing the phases of the moon. Phew, tht would be a pain! All those hilltop fires from Jerusalem - think of the chain that would have to be made to get to those poor Jews on other continents...but I digress), but there are a couple of liturgical items that change according to the secular (i.e. gregorian) calendar. Of course there are also a couple of items tht still go according to meterological phenomenon too (like the blessing on the new moon, or one that only occuirs every couple of decades, nevermind) but these don't fall under the rubric of having to synchronize multiple calendars.