Epiphany, in contrast, is just for Christians and for pious ones at that. Down through the corridors of history, men, at least those with riches and leisure time enough, have always managed to turn just about any special day into a party or at least a large banquet, but the raison d'etre of Epiphany has always been deeply religous and exclusively Christ-centered.

It is popularly thought to commemorate the visit to the baby Jesus by the Magi. That would be the three Wise Men: Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar. They represented the first encounter between Jesus Christ and Gentiles. The name "Epiphany" comes from the Greeks (epiphaneia) and means “manifestation” or "revelation." Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other Western churches observe The Epiphany on January 6, while some Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Theophany on January 19, since their Christmas Eve falls on January 6. (What comes from a world observing different calendars simultaneously, before the time of Pope Gregory.)

It is referred to by other names as well: Little Christmas, Three Kings Day, Theophany, Timket. And is also thought of by many as the Twelfth day of Christmas, the official end of the holiday season and time to take down your tree and decorations.

Only, The Epiphany is actually one day following the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Twelfth night is January 5, and The Epiphany is the next day, Jan.6. A common misconception. Moreover, the feast's original purpose was considerably broader than just marking the date the Three Wise Men paid a call. According to the early Christian Churches (and others) its intent was also to commemorate the manifestation of Christ as the Son of God, through his baptism at the Jordan River, as well as the revelation of his glory through his first public miracle, at the wedding feast of Cana. A hard-working holiday.

In the interests of full disclosure: the evangelist Matthew's three Magi, or Wise Men, derive their name from the Latin "magi," plural of magus, "Persian for priest or wise man," and from Greek "magos" meaning Persian priest, sorcerer—related to magic. Actually they were most likely astronomers. Magi is the only word of Persian origin in the original Greek Bible; they were evidently priests of Zoroastrianism, which was the official religion of Persia at the time.

Epiphany is one of the three principal and oldest festival days of the Christian church. (The other two being Easter and Christmas Day itself.) Observance originated in the Eastern church, and it at first included a commemoration of Christ’s birth as well. In the year 200, theologian Clement of Alexandria wrote about early Egyptian Christians celebrating the baptism of Jesus.

The church in Rome began the practice of celebrating Christmas on December 25 in 336 CE, during the reign of Emperor Constantine, and the earliest Christmas celebrations may date back even further. Later in the 4th century the church in Rome began celebrating Epiphany on January 6. The first reference to an ecclesiastical Epiphany feast day can be traced to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, in 361.

2024 Annual Skelly Family Christmas Video

Journey of the Magi

T. S. Eliot, 1888 – 1965

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

---

2023 Index:
Dec. 10 - 3.38   Dec. 15 - 3.69   Dec. 20 - 3.89   Dec. 25 - 4.12

2024 Index:
Jan. 1 - 2.61   Jan 6 - 2.73   Right now: 3.09

Season Stats to Date ...

Current Christmas Spirit breakdown:

20%

22%

9%

9%

7%

4%

27%

12/30/24:

A ragged start to this holiday season. Not so much the season itself, but this website's ability to track it. The Christmas Spirit Index database evidently got the flu for Christmas. Which is ironic. So did it's author. Which accounts for why the site was so far off schedule in the first place. Site and author both feeling much better now, thank you for asking. Christmas Spirit voting is now working, if anyone's still interested. Kind of more like an exit poll now than a prognosticator. But go ahead and vote. How does the holiday season so quickly passing feel looking back? Retrospectively, so to speak. Feel free to factor in New Year sentiments as well. The index will stay live through the Epiphany. That's the 12th day of Christmas, in case you didn't know. That would be, Jan. 6, for those bad at both history and math.

1/1/25

Cautious improvement. What more could be expected? So much hot air has already excaped the balloon. Next, and final, post will be Jan. 6—The Epiphany. Something new this year, and a topic heretofore not seriously explored. It will be an education for all of us, Sammy included. Surely there are things a Catholic schoolboy education failed to cover, or did but, like dreams that fell by the way, are now a long time forgotten. (A nod to Waylon and Willie.) We'll take the temperature again then. If there's one to be taken.

1/6/25

Kind of flat. Possibly the Christmas Spirit has already kind of got up and went. Or there could be another explanation. A very disillusioned adult or perhaps a small child or someone unfamiliar with navigating a web form voted in sequential fashion almost a dozen -1s. The only way to record a minus 1 score is by pressing the "vote" button before making any selection. (A mistake easy to make with a cell phone.) In a real election, a canvassing board would look at such ballots and decide whether they represent legitimate votes or should be discarded as "no votes." For the moment they are being counted as bah humbug votes with a value of 0. (Why not vote "bah humbug," which would record a "0" score as opposed to a "no vote.") In the past such votes have been discarded. This could raise the final index score significantly. Sammy is thinking it over. What? You thought this was a game?