From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
January 17, 2026 (#67)
When Does the Christmas Season Really End?
Among more traditionally minded Catholics, sometimes there arise fraternal conflicts with regard to the question of when the Christmas season “really” ends. On a practical level, the debate is about when to take down the Christmas tree and other decorations. In a society that in many ways “moves on” from Christmas by December 26th, it is commendable that Christian believers would fight the secular drift and cling to sacramental signs of their joy that emanate from the truth of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Child of Bethlehem. In their zeal, perhaps some forget prudence when they leave their desiccated trees, susceptible to house fires, up until February 2. Others insist that the tree stay up until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, while some (more liberal?!) might insist that January 6 is sufficient, even if it is no longer observed everywhere as the date of the Solemnity of the Epiphany. What is the source of such confusion? Some of the confusion is due to varying cultural traditions. But a good part of the confusion flows from the changing liturgical rubrics of the Roman Rite in recent times.
Let's start with the question of when the Christmas season begins. Prior to the reform of the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar in 1969, the Christmas season began with Midnight Mass. Since those changes, season is understood to begin with the first Vigil Mass of Christmas Eve (December 24). So, when does this season end? According to the 1969 rubrics, the last day of the Christmas season is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is celebrated on the Sunday after Epiphany, unless the Epiphany is transferred to January 7th or 8th, in which case the Feast of the Baptism is kept on the following Monday. How is it that the Epiphany can be celebrated on a day other than January 6? The same rubrics of 1969 made it possible for the bishops of a region or country to petition the Holy See for permission to transfer the observance of the solemnity to the Sunday after January 1. And so it now is in the Diocese of the United States of America. But it is still kept, for example, on January 6th in Puerto Rico, where the day is also observed as a civic holiday. In sum, the conclusion of the Christmas season, according to the current rubrics, is a movable date, dependent on the observance of the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
So where does February 2 come in? Prior to the 1969 liturgical reform, this day was celebrated as a Marian feast, The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as Candlemas, because of the blessing of candles on this day. With the modern reform, the day was reclassified as a feast of the Lord, now called The Presentation of the Lord. It still is the day on which candles that are used liturgically and devotionally are to be blessed. It is certainly related to the season of Christmas, inasmuch as it is celebrated 40 days after that feast, in conformity with the Scriptural witness of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:22-20). The day is not technically part of the Christmas season. But because of the obvious connection with the birth of Christ, some cultures have maintained the tradition of keeping the Christmas crib up until that date. Among Mexicans, for example, it is traditional on that day to bring the statue of the Infant Jesus from the home to the church, in imitation of what Mary and Joseph did, where it is blessed by the priest. Upon its return to the house, the family Christmas crib is taken up and put away until next Christmas.
In another Mexican tradition, a special cake in the form of a crown, called rosca de Reyes (“Kings wreath”) is served at the end of a festive meal on the Epiphany. A tiny figure of a child is baked into the cake, and the one who receives the piece with that figurine is expected to provide a meal consisting of tamales for the same assembly/family on February 2nd. In these two ways, the Mexican community has preserved a vital cultural link between the Christmas season and the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, though liturgically they are not strictly related. Sometimes, a living Catholic culture trumps modern liturgical rubrics!
