Except for those people more Catholic than the Pope I guess.
.
The Holy Father launched the holiday season in Rome with his visit to the Colonna dell'Immacolata near the Spanish Steps in Rome, to place a wreath in the Virgin's hands on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. (A fireman usually does it, while the Pope prays.)
.
ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI has inaugurated the Christmas season in Rome with his traditional visit to the posh Spanish Steps neighborhood to pray before a statue of Mary. Throngs of shoppers, tourists and Romans alike jammed the rain-slicked cobblestones around the piazza to catch a glimpse of Benedict as he marked the Catholic Church's feast of the Immaculate Conception. - Source
.
Don't mention Christmas...
.
I'm sure liturgical purists will say that is not what was going on, but evidently Romans see it another way. Indeed, the Bavarian-born Pope Benedict has said that immediately after the feast of the Immaculate Conception it has been a firmly rooted tradition that many families set up their crib, "as if to relive with Mary those days full of trepidation that preceded the birth of Jesus."
.
Of course the actual Christmas season begins on Christmas Eve, but until then, many holidays are celebrated throughout Advent - as a friend pointed out in one of his posts. Hence my personal opinion: until Christmas, it seems fitting to use the greeting, Happy Holidays from Thanksgiving on. When Christmas arrives, Merry Christmas, or the British Happy Christmas is appropriate through Epiphany... or Candlemas if you are really a Christmas freak. [BTW - I put out my Christmas lights and decorations on St. Nicholas' Day. St. Nicholas is the real Santa for those of you not too tarnished by American Evangelical Protestantism, Calvinism, or even Mormonism for that matter.]
.
But some insist Christmas can wait?
.
Interestingly, Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City has written his first pastoral letter urging Catholic to avoid Christmas celebrations, decorating, parties, and all the other fun holiday stuff during Advent.
.
Utah’s Catholic bishop is putting the brakes on Christmas.
.
In his first pastoral letter to Utah’s 300,000 Catholics since becoming their shepherd in 2007, Bishop John C. Wester asks that members hold off celebrating Christmas until the season actually begins Dec. 24.
.
Catholics, Wester says, ought not have early parties in their homes or churches, light up their trees or decorate their schools with more than simple wreaths and boughs of green.
.
Instead, the bishop writes, Catholics should remain faithful to Advent, a four-week season that began Sunday and focuses on prayer, reflection and the joyful expectation both of Christ’s birth and his return at the end of time.
.
“I know it is an enormous challenge,” Wester writes, “to remain faithful to the Advent season when we are surrounded by a society which, while claiming to be Christian, does not take the time to reflect and prepare as the church calls us to do.” - Source
.
Isn't that something?
.
Happy Holidays!
.
Photo: The Christmas tree is up in St. Peter's Square already. I know!
