I used to hate the days after Christmas—the anticlimax, the crash after the long build-up.
No more Christmas music.
No more “Merry Christmas” greetings and salutations.
No more decorations and lights as everyone “de-cluttered” and de-Christmased their homes.

Rutherford used to throw me and the children in The Beast—his beloved 1964 Land Rover—and take us out driving, searching for any remaining Christmas lights, just to stave off my impending January depression. It didn’t help that I grew up with a father who said that any Christmas decorations left up after January 1st were bad luck.
So even into my thirties, December 26th felt sudden. Final.

Until I joined the Episcopal Church and fully embraced the twelve days of Christmas, lasting until Epiphany.

A whole new attitude began.

Christmas Day was no longer the end, but truly the beginning. Our family started a new tradition, ceremoniously throwing the Christmas tree out the front door on Epiphany.

A new mindset—joy, celebration, and family tradition—took root.

Christmas choral music continues to reverberate through the halls and rooms of Stags Head Retreat even as we approach January. Christmas cookies, our beloved Tiger Lee’s fruitcake, bourbon balls, lobster bisque—these delicacies are made and enjoyed in the days beyond the 25th.

But the biggest key component of this new mindset is simple:

peace, joy, and contentment.

As we approach the shorter winter days, we do so with calm and appreciation—for rest, for time together, for restoration of both body and spirit.

January sneaks in with a wink and a smile: nights by the fire, reading the new books in the library received as gifts, the evolution of the perfect Manhattan in the Whiski Room, the warm scarves in the Tweed Closet.

Nothing is lost as Christmas Day passes.
So much is gained as we celebrate twelve holy days together—in family, in community, and in gratitude.