Thought I'd pick at random:
2. What are your favorite Advent and Christmas traditions?
For the past couple of years I've been trying to get us to do something Christmasy during the weekends of Advent. Last year we got a bit distracted by James' new job and I missed the one thing I wanted to do, the Christmas exhibit at the Marietta History Museum. We did get to see the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company perform at Stone Mountain Park. The year before, 2001, was quite fun. We went to the Candlelight Walk at the Atlanta History Center one weekend, out to the monastery in Conyers another weekend, etc.
I also like to spread things out so everything does not abruptly end December 25. I can't tell you how many people have surprised me by saying that the Twelve Days of Christmas are the twelve days before Christmas. This is some henious propaganda and rot that television and magazine advertisers have gotten people into believing. Christmas Day begins the Christmas season/Christmastide/the 12 days of Christmas, which lasts until January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, when, tradition says, the Wise Men reached the stable where Jesus was born. It at least lasts through what is usually Christmas vacation at school and New Year's Day.
A couple of years back James and I decided the two-hour trip down and then back again to Warner Robins on Christmas Day was just Too Much, especially since we like to go to Midnight Mass at a friend's church. We never got any time to ourselves on the holiday.
Now we go down to visit his mother, sister, and niece on the weekend after Christmas. It's nice and relaxed and we don't have to worry about going to bed late or getting up early. We spend New Year's Eve with friends and then have a Twelfth Night party on the closest Saturday to January 6. It stretches out the pleasure of the holiday.
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