The Christmases before Christmas

Happy New Year! We've been really busy these past few weeks with driving. Up and down California for family Christmases, all before we even celebrate Christmas! Our celebration of Christmas is on January 7th, but this is sort of nice because we get a lot of the gift giving and familial Christmases out of the way, and we have time to really enjoy and spiritually prepare for the Nativity of Christ. Christmas with us starts for Advent, a time of fasting and prayer, but not as strict as the Lent before Pascha. We do an Advent wreath, and finally...

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Celebrating St. Lucia

I can only imagine our spawn's thoughts this morning. "Why is mommy's head on fire? What is that smell? You guys see this, right? Her head is on fire. Oh, they got out the tea set. But that doesn't smell like tea. What are those yellow buns? Wait, why are they singing before eating breakfast? WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Well what's going on is the Feast of St. Lucy, or St. Lucia, or Santa Lucia depending on how multicultural you want to be. A lot of Orthodox don't celebrate this feast day, but it's a good Norse holiday (big in Sweden), which is Germanish,...

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Celebrating St. Nicholas Day!

Hello again, to all my friends! I'm glad you came to play... You might be a parent if you get that reference. Anyway, today is the Feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Bishop of Myra! Now, December 6th is his birthday on the New Calendar. Not too many people are familiar with this, so here's a brief explanation. Feel free to skip if you get it: Before 1582 everyone used what was called the Julian Calendar. That was all hunky dory, but the math is a bit off. Don't ask me how to explain this stuff, all I know is "the Gregorian calendar is more...

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