Kage Baker was raised as a Roman Catholic (as was I), in the modern, 20th century tradition. In our cases, that meant 12 years of parochial school, church every Sunday, and a paucity of saints’ days in the liturgical calendar.

We liked the saint’s days we did know about, because they usually meant we got the day off from school. For example, we got the day after Halloween off – All Saints Day, you know. It meant an extra day to spend working your leisurely way through the candy loot from the night before, usually with a book to hand. Personally, I used to go sit outside the gates of the local public school, eating chocolate and taunting the kids who didn’t get All Saints Day off. I usually had to hastily exeunt, pursued by bears (as the Bard says.).

Anyway, as Catholic school kids, we were at least subliminally aware of saints’ days all the time. I doubt that that our attitudes were what the nuns hoped we were developing … but Kage was much more interested than I was, and scholarly interest can pass easily for piety.

One of the things she discovered was that Christmas and Epiphany (which commemorates Jesus’ baptism) actually constitute a special season of their own – Epiphanytide. Epiphany falls on the 6th of January, and each of the days between that and December 25th is dedicated to a particular saint. Today, for instance, honors St. Anthony the Hermit.

Mind you, St. Anthony the Hermit is only the principal saint for December 28th. The Roman Catholic church usually has 2 or 3 saints per day, simply because there are so many saints in the liturgical calendar. Kage liked him better than the others who shared his day, because of the reason he is called the hermit – he tried to be a hermit continuously but was just as continuously pursued by his devotees and disciples. So, he kept fleeing, apparently just to find a place to be alone. At which endeavor the poor fellow failed, as he needs must share his saint’s day with 8 other saints. At least.

Kage found that hilarious.

But my point here is that Christmas doesn’t end on Christmas Day – and I don’t mean that in some dewy-eyed Hallmark special meaning about clinging to the holiday throughout the year. I’m not even a Christian; neither was Kage. I mean that, literally, Christmas doesn’t end. It flows along into other holidays, one of whose endpoints is always that bright, beautiful holiday at the heart of winter.

Pick any holiday in the wide rolling year, and it’s the same. It pours along through all the holidays that come after it, and by the time you reach the New Year, you are bedizened with enough feathers of light and colour to impersonate a peacock. An iridescent, glowing peacock. From space. Or Faerieland, or wherever your heart calls home.

It all just flows along.