The world begins its new year with resolutions. The Church begins it with a name. January 1 is the Feast of the Circumcision and Holy Name of Our Lord — the eighth day of Christmas, when the infant Jesus was circumcised and given the name that means salvation. Not a resolution. A person.
December 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents. Four days after the angels sang, children are dead in Bethlehem. The Church does not move this grief to a more convenient time. It places it here, in the middle of Christmas, because that is where it actually belongs.
December 27: Feast of John, Apostle and Evangelist. He was at the table, the cross, the tomb, the breakfast fire. He outlived every other apostle. And at the end of a long life, he was still writing: that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you.
December 26: the feast of Stephen, the first martyr. The day after Christmas, the Church moves from the cradle to the stones. The child laid in the manger is the Lord for whom Stephen dies. The Incarnation was never going to be safe.
The Season of Christmas begins on December 25 and runs for twelve days. The Church’s Christmas does not peak on the 25th and recede. It begins there and holds — through Stephen’s red, John’s white, the Innocents’ red, and twelve days of the preface: he was born for us.
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Christmas Day). Not a heartwarming story about a baby in a manger — the announcement that the eternal Word through whom all things were made became one of the things he made. The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. That is Christmas.