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01.  Introduction

Growing up the day after Christmas was spent cleaning. The ornaments were placed in their boxes, the decorations repacked, and—with much fragrant vacuuming of pine needles—the tree brought to the curb. I never understood why my mother was so quick to put away the remnants of Christmas. I imagine it was because it was a big chore best done then rather than later—before bits of tinsel were further dispersed under hard-to-reach crevices.

My family’s understanding, similar to other Nondenominational Evangelicals, was that the Christmas season started on December 1 and ended after December 25. There were no distinctions made between Advent and Christmastide. Even still, my parents continually reminded my brother and I that the presents under the tree were not the culmination of Christmas, the real climax was a savior born in a manger.

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02.  Advent–Christmastide–Epiphany

My love and appreciation for Advent was awakened when I was in college. Christmastide and Epiphany, however, were a much later discovery. Gradually, over the last four years, I have begun to appreciate that Christmas begins on December 25 and does not end until twelve days later on January 6. Epiphany, the true finale of the Christmas season, is when Christ’s divinity is revealed to the world. It is observed as a major feast day in the more liturgical Christian traditions.

Like many of my newfound attachments to the church calendar, I needed an embodied experience of Christmastide and Epiphany to truly understand their significance. My first experience was four years ago at the Community of Grandchamp, a Protestant and ecumenically-minded convent in Switzerland. Founded shortly before the start of WWII, Grandchamp’s dedication to the unity of the church led them to welcome community members from the full spectrum of Protestantism, as well as adopt liturgy, art, and practices from Catholic and Orthodox sources, including the observance of major feast days in the church calendar. I arrived unaware that I would be with them for Epiphany.

The darkness of those long winter nights, the brief snow storm, and the cold wind blowing from the distant Alps made my first Epiphany feast all the warmer and more brilliant. A feast it was and a joyous rupture in the community’s usual daily rhythms. A roast was prepared—a welcome change to the simple and mostly vegetarian meals served at the community. Wine was poured—a special addition considering the community only has wine six days out of the year on the most important feast days. And platters of cookies, chocolates, and fruits were passed around at several of the meals during my brief three-night visit. My first experience of an Epiphany feast felt right and good. However, the novelty of the experience meant I did not seriously consider adopting my own Epiphany practice the following year.

It was two years later in Washington, DC when I had my second experience of commemorating Epiphany. My good friend Nathan Wineinger, an artful and generous host for all types of gatherings, invited our Church’s community to his fourth annual Epiphany party located at his home lovingly named, “The Outpost.” So I went, knowing it would be an event.

The event—complete with a feast of hors d’oeuvres, sparkling beverages, a grownup improv Christmas pageant, Christmas carols, and Epiphalympic games—was done in the spirit of exuberant festivity. Before that night, I hadn’t realized my need to celebrate Epiphany with friends and strangers.

When I knew I would be writing about Epiphany, I called Nathan to learn more about the inspiration behind the annual Epiphany party. I do not know anyone else who is so entirely committed to Epiphany that they would say it is “one of the most important dates in my calendar.”

Nathan shared that the tradition started out in part as a practicality. He did not want to compete with the “frantic” holiday season in DC. I can attest. December through New Year’s Eve is an absolute frenzy with company Christmas parties, church events, house parties, a final work cram before everything comes to a standstill, and for most people, travel back to their hometowns.  Instead, he began to offer an Epiphany party after New Year’s resolutions were made and everyone had returned to the hum drum of DC business. Between the post-holiday blues and the transient nature of DC, Nathan saw an opportunity to give people something to look forward to when they returned and for the event to be a sort of “welcome home.”

But most importantly, Nathan wanted to savor the full measure of Christmastide—to keep celebrating and feasting to Christ’s arrival—and to invite others into that experience. He found that really relishing in the full twelve days of Christmas helped the holiday season extend beyond the consumerist pull.

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03.  The Twelve Days of Christmas

The more that I have reflected on our conversation about his annual Epiphany party, the more I have come to appreciate the formational qualities of time—of extending Christmas twelve more days. To use Nathan’s words, it reorients where we place the “exclamation point” during the Christmas season. The emphasis is no longer on the Hallmark version with lavish material gifts, but on feasting with others to commemorate the wonder that God would send his Son in the form of an innocent, vulnerable baby—fully human, fully God.

But also more practically, I admire Nathan’s annual Epiphany party for another reason. Why not add another feast in the middle of a long, cold, and dark winter? It provides another chance to extend radical Christian hospitality. Whether it is the kind of hospitality meant for guests at a monastery in the mountains of Switzerland or for DC professionals in need of a ‘welcome home,’ an Epiphany feast might be just what you or your neighbors need to end this holiday season with an extra exclamation point.

If this sounds a bit exhausting after all of the travel and expectations of the holiday season, don’t worry. As you will see in the suggested practices below, adopting a new practice or adding a new feast to commemorate Christmastide and Epiphany can be simple and fun. Personally, my modest mission this year is to convince my mother to keep the tree and decorations up until Epiphany.

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04.  For Further Reading

• Priya Parker’s book The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters is filled with lots of inspiring ideas for how to host and feast well. While it is not a faith-based text, it offers some helpful ideas for transforming holiday gatherings into meaningful and memorable experiences.
• Nathan recommends giving these classics a re-read: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
• Another one of The Outpost’s residents, Jared Hayden, recommends Robert Capan’s The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflectionfor a more theological reflection on the importance of feasting.

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05.  Suggested Practices

• If you typically like to take down your Christmas decorations soon after Christmas or on New Year’s Day, consider leaving up your decorations for the full-length of Christmastide until January 7. (As I will be persuading my mother to do so this year.)
• For the twelve days of Christmas, begin a new annual practice to really dwell in the full meaning of Christ’s birth and incarnation. Enjoy 5 minutes of dedicated silence to meditate on all of the implications of Christ’s birth; or send a text to a different person each day to wish them a happy Christmastide.
• Host an Epiphany party! It can be as simple as a small dinner with friends, or as complex as an improv grownup Christmas pageant with an invitation extended to the whole neighborhood. Nathan suggests adding to your party playlist “The Light Came Down” by Josh Garrels, the album “Songs for Christmas” by Sufjan Stevens, and any English cathedral choir record that has “Good King Wenceslas.”
• If you aren’t able to gather people together this year, then make one of your favorite recipes for Epiphany to partake in the spirit of feasting. You can also try making Spaghetti Carbonara, one of The Outpost’s favorite dishes.