“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1<\/p>\n

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Why We Do This<\/h1>\nFor the past five years, our young family has been celebrating Christmas over the course of twelve days, rather than a single morning.\u00a0 This has\u2014for us\u2014made Christmas better, so we want to invite others to try it as well.\u00a0 We’ve compiled several resources on this site to give you a vision of what this <\/span>might<\/em> look like: Suggested Scripture, Prayers, Carols, Reflections, Readings from Literature, Activities and Gift Suggestions.\u00a0 Feel free to take what inspires you.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are, of course, drawbacks to this more “traditional” approach to the holidays.\u00a0 For one thing, it is counter-cultural, and the effort to resist cosmetic Christmas culture may carry with it the dangers of pride and obnoxious self-righteousness.\u00a0 For another thing, we have found that it is more or less impossible to find twelve gifts for everyone in our immediate family without resorting to simply buying cheap junk (we’ll talk about some solutions to this, though, and the “Gift Ideas” suggestions for each page feature “alternative” gifts which can be made rather than bought).\u00a0 We lack the wealth of the giver in the (justly?) famous Christmas carol as surely as we lack his obsession with dispensing birds in a manic-yet-methodical manner.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the benefits, at least for us, have outweighed the drawbacks.\u00a0 First, Christmas is now a <\/span>season <\/strong>of reflection and giving rather than a single-morning binge during which we half-expect spiritual fulfillment from material gifts because of their sheer volume.\u00a0 At the same time, we (and certainly our kids) tend to appreciate presents more when we space them out over the course of twelve days.\u00a0 When multiple gifts are given in a single day, there are usually minor presents that are eclipsed by major presents, only to be ignored and forgotten.\u00a0 Using the twelve-day model, we give the major presents on the first and final days of Christmas, leaving our kids (and ourselves) plenty of space to appreciate the minor ones. \u00a0<\/span><\/para>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

To be honest, this has been the primary reason we’ve started celebrating Christmas this way, but we’ve found that a lot of other benefits have followed.\u00a0 The last-minute stress of Christmas Eve (“Did we get ‘enough’ for each other?\u00a0 For our kids?\u00a0 Does everyone have an equal amount?”) is virtually gone, replaced with excitement and enjoyment of each other and the season.\u00a0 We no longer have to get all of the gifts for everyone before December 25th.\u00a0 We can purchase gifts after this date, often at lower cost. \u00a0We don’t have to bite our nails over whether a gift we have ordered by mail will arrive by Christmas Eve.<\/span><\/p>\n

Probably more importantly, as our kids have gotten older, we’ve wrapped the giving of each day’s gift in a kind of ceremony.\u00a0 We are Christian, and we use this season to mark the birth of God into the world as a human being.\u00a0 Doing this over the course of twelve days (usually at a set time each day) gives us more time to meditate together on the significance of Jesus’ Incarnation.\u00a0 We usually read Scripture together, say a prayer, and teach our kids a Christmas Carol, which becomes the “Carol of the Day.”\u00a0 It seems likely to us that this sort of model could be easily adapted by other families, couples, individuals, communities, or groups of friends, so we thought we’d share it in case it makes your Christmas a little more enjoyable and meaningful.\u00a0 Take what works for you and holds your interest, and discard the rest.\u00a0 This is meant to make Christmas better\u2014a sort of neo-traditional release from consumerist legalism, rather than a new set of rules to follow perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n

The twelve-day model gives us a framework upon which we can improvise.\u00a0 The following posts (one per day, starting Christmas Eve) are ideas we’ve either come up with or inherited from older traditions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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beauty in the past\/present\/\u00a0now<\/span><\/h2>\n

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Join<\/h3>\n

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pipkin +\u00a012tide<\/p>\n

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Hi!From the Pipkins When they are not creating overly ambitious Christmas blogs, Chris and Glencora work at jobs they enjoy and spend their days foisting civilization and Christendom on three lovable and energetic children.\u00a0 They live in Georgia.\u00a0 If you want to share some of your Christmas traditions (or make some other suggestion), feel free to e-mail them at dozendaysofchristmas@gmail.com.\u00a0\u00a0facebooktwitterinstagramyoutubepinterestOur Focus “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1 Why We Do This For the past five years, our young family has been celebrating Christmas over the course of twelve days, rather than a single morning.\u00a0 This has\u2014for us\u2014made Christmas better, so we want to invite others to try it as well.\u00a0 We’ve compiled several resources on this site to give you a vision of what this might look like: Suggested Scripture, Prayers, Carols, Reflections, Readings from Literature, Activities and Gift Suggestions.\u00a0 Feel free to take what inspires you.\u00a0\u00a0 There are, of course, drawbacks to this more “traditional” approach to the holidays.\u00a0 For one thing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":463,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-462","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n