CityView Magazine

10 | November/December 2019 C F A I T H Holiday Traditions Keeping the Faith in a Changing World BY THE REVEREND ROBERT M. ALVES C ould anyone have imagined 53 years ago that a cras fair organized by a few women and held in the parish hall of St. John's Episcopal Church would grow into today's Holly Day Fair? Now a huge four-day shopping bazaar, the annual event launches the holiday season in Fayetteville. Holiday observances have long been rooted in rituals which spring from religious, family, social and cultural traditions but they change over the years. We still say "merry Christmas" but we also say "happy holidays," expanding the greeting to people whose religious beliefs are different or nonexistent. e fair expands from a church hall to our local convention center. For Christians in the United States anksgiving Day and Christmas Day are the holy days of the holiday season. e word "holiday" comes from the old English word for holy day, meaning a day set apart for special religious observance. Back when the present-day Holly Day Fair began, members of St. John's were accustomed to going to worship services on anksgiving morning and Christmas morning before gathering with family and friends and enjoying the traditional feasting. In my own boyhood the family decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. e tree remained in its place of honor throughout the twelve days of Christmas ending on the Epiphany. Known also as Old Christmas, the Epiphany on January 6 commemorates the arrival of the three wise men to visit the newborn Christ child, bearing their gis of gold, frankincense and myrrh – yes, that's the origin of the tradition of gi-giving at Christmas. Speaking of gi-giving and the twelve days of Christmas, please note that the twelve days of Christmas correctly refer to Christmas Day and the days following – not the last twelve shopping days before December 25! Our holiday observances change over the years, as do many aspects of our lives. e pressure to "do Christmas" perfectly can add stress. Nonetheless, we can preserve the joy of gi exchange among loved ones and rejoice in the raised awareness and practice of charitable giving. Geographic separation makes it more difficult for many of us to gather our extended families all together for these holidays, making that togetherness all the more precious. While decades ago anksgiving was meaningfully a single day and Christmas was traditionally twelve days, the modern holiday season has spread and occupies more time just as the Holly Day Fair has spread and occupies more days and more square footage. New traditions demand more of our time and energy, bringing both welcome enrichment to embrace and unwelcome stress to manage.

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