If you are like me, after church on Christmas Eve, most of the celebrating of Christmas takes place on the First Day of Christmas, December 25. That is the day presents are exchanged, feasts are eaten and beverages are imbibed. From there it is usually downhill.
Boxing Day on December 26 is usually spent recuperating from the day before and playing with all the new toys. Servants are in short supply in our household (unlike Downton Abbey) so the traditional way of spending the day—doling out presents to household staff—doesn't take very long.
The next day of any special significance is New Year's Eve, December 31, when we count down the hours to New Year's Day. After the ball drops and champagne corks are popped New Year's Eve ends and when we awake (relaxed and refreshed) it's time for parades and football bowl games. The bowl games used to be more interesting and involve the top-ranked tems but now the BCSC playoffs have diminished their importance and there seems to be less reason to hunker down for 10 hours of football.
After that nothing much happens until the Twelfth Day, January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, sometimes called "Little Christmas." Except for Orthodox Christians, this feast day is not usually celebrated. At our house it is the beginning of the "when-do-we-take-down-the-Christmas-tree" discussion.
The season ends with a trip to the tree drop-off at the Bruce Park Playground around the fifteenth or sixteenth day of Christmas. You know, around the time when the various ladies dancing, lords a leeping, pipers piping and drummers drumming have called it quits for another year.
