Epiphany
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light
My family isn't very much into tradition. There isn't a traditional Christmas breakfast item or a birthday plate or a weekly meal out. We never gathered round to watch a certain TV show or tell the story of the day you were born.
But we always celebrated Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas when the Wise Men arrived in Jerusalem to visit Baby Jesus.
We had this old school Christmas traditions book with stories about imps that lived in the attic, and St. Nicholas, and the Wise Men. We learned that the night before Epiphany children in other countries left our their shoes filled with hay for the Magi's camels. When they came through they would eat the hay and leave a present.
We decided to celebrate this tradition. Every year we would leave out our shoes. Sometimes we left them out the night before--January 5--but sometimes we forgot and left them out the evening of Epiphany--January 6. Either way, the Magi always found us.
They would leave Target-Dollar-Aisle fare but this was before the Target Dollar Aisle so the Magi had to search far and wide for fun, cheap gifts. This was hard for the Magi, I think, because the Magi were stressed out with job losses and recovering from Christmas and all those other things, but the Magi also always made sure we had our hay out (even if it was a day late).
What traditions does your family have?
Comments
That carol is my favourite and the only one I can play well on a keyboard :)
That's a great tradition Abigail!! Does your family still do it?
My family doesn't really have a tradition as such for anything other than if Dad takes a Sunday morning off (he works non stop all year), we kids pile into our parents bedroom - my Dad & kid brother sleep for another hour with Dad hugging him, Mum is under the quilt reading a newspaper, I grab the couch and read the Sunday magazine and my sis drags her bean bag in and reads a book. All while listening to old Hindi songs playing on the radio.
I, on other hand have a zillion small for-self traditions.
Posted by: Aakanksha | January 8, 2006 11:49 PM
My mother makes us sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" in church every year. When we were younger it was cute. Now we act annoyed, but I think secretly none of us would want to stop.
(PS I'm totally just posting to get clicks, just kidding, HATER!)
Posted by: SHEPHERD | January 9, 2006 10:17 AM
awwwww...
Posted by: Sally Schilling | January 9, 2006 4:28 PM
My family has an ABSOLUTELY NO CHRISTMAS TREES EVER tradition.
I think my parents might be related to The Grinch.
Posted by: Kathy | January 9, 2006 5:31 PM
my parents started that one this year!!
but it might have been just laziness.
Posted by: matt | January 9, 2006 5:36 PM
shepherd, i know we dont know each other, but way to make the move to blogger.
Posted by: heather nicole | January 9, 2006 6:15 PM