It all comes to an abrupt and undramatic end on Christmas Day. All the decorations in the stores magically disappear and the horrible music mercifully ceases.
That is when Christmas actually begins. Christmas Day is…the First Day of Christmas. We have twelve days of feasting and celebration. When the world’s party has ended, ours has just begun. The holidays—the holy days—can finally be observed in their fullness. And we can start listening to decent music.
The world is out of whack about most things, as epitomized by its getting Christmas totally wrong. It attempts to celebrate it before it happens and then without the actual reason for celebrating it. It partakes of Christmas pleasures throughout Advent, and then walks away just as the real event gets underway. The result is a pleasure that is unsatisfying. Abstinence is not a concept the world takes a liking to. It has the same problem with Advent that it has with sex and marriage. Celebrating too soon, and then not properly celebrating at the right time. Not feasting at the right time and then fasting at the wrong time.
—from the article Suffering Advent by Dale Ahlquist
the five minute Catholic 