Baran-Unland: Why we celebrate Christmas on Jan 7

While many people have most likely taken down the Christmas tree and packed away the holiday décor, a few million people are just wrapping up their Christmas celebrations.

More than 250 million people worldwide celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, and not just people in the Ukraine. My family is among those who recently celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, although we have a blur of reasons for doing do.

The Jan. 7 Christmas goes by several names – Orthodox Christmas, Old Calendar Christmas, Julian Christmas – but those titles also sum up the reasons for the date variance.

The explanation is actually tied to calendars.

When the dates for religious observances were set in the early centuries of the Christian church, the calendar in use at the time was a calendar established by Julius Caesar, known as the Julian calendar. That calendar was modified in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII and is the calendar the world now uses.

However, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted, 11 days were dropped to correct inaccuracies in the former calendar. But the date adjustment interfered with the setting the date for Easter for Christians, since First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea decreed in 325 that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.

So most Eastern Orthodox churches used the Julian calendar for their religious observances until the early 20th century, when many Eastern Orthodox adopted the Gregorian calendar – except for Easter.

[ Baran-Unland: ‘New life’ is Easter’s hope and joy, no matter how or when you celebrate ]

As Eastern Orthodox Christians, our family has known other families through the years who celebrates Christmas on one of those dates and both of those dates. We once belonged to a church that offered Christmas services on both Dec. 25 and Jan. 7.

I grew up celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25. So how and why did our family make the switch?

It was gradual and for several reasons.

When I was first married, where and when to celebrate was never an issue. My husband’s family held its main Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve; my family celebrated on Christmas Day.

But by the time half of our six children were born, we realized we were not creating Christmas traditions of our own. We further realized that, as the children grew up, married, and had families of their own, they’d face another layer of “where and when to celebrate.”

So we sidestepped that by making a Christmas of our own.

On Jan. 7, 1989, we celebrated our first Old Calendar Christmas with another family. And from there, we built our own Christmas traditions.

My fifth child was born on Jan. 7, 1994, making the already special day even more special.

Fast forward to 2023.

My adult children don’t have the burden of dragging their children from house to house on Christmas Day. We have our own day when most of the adult kids can gather under one roof with their own children and adding another layer of memories.

We’re able to take full advantage of post-Christmas sales, especially in terms of wrapping paper, ribbon, tape, etc.

December 25 is still Christmas Day for us - except for one adult son who only recognizes Jan. 7 as Christmas. It’s just a quieter, more reflective day. Jan. 7 is the wonderfully long, exhausting, topsy turvy day of family, good food, generous gifts, games and laughter, noise, etc.

It’s the full maturation of the Christmas season, if you will. After that, the Christmas season simply fades away until it ends on Feb. 2 with no post-holiday blues.

But, on a more religious note, our Christmas appears much in the same spirit the first Christian Christmas appeared, in terms of Jesus’ birth.

Our Christmas arrives unobtrusively, quietly, off to the side.

Denise M. Baran-Unland is the features editor at The Herald-News. Contact her at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.