It’s the first Monday of the new year after the holidays, day after the Epiphany. For many this signals the end of everything Christmas. What if I told you that Christmas is just the beginning of this season? That Christmas day and the 12 days that follow are the mere tip of the icicle? That in the older Catholic tradition the Christmas season lasts all through January right into Feb. 2?

I have been experiencing the length of the Christmas season this year more than others in a unique way. I have the blessing of being very pregnant, due to deliver our fourth baby in 10 days, and this Christmas has offered me the invitation to reflect a little deeper upon the story of and circumstances surrounding Christmas, most particularly in empathizing and experiencing with Mary how arduous that journey must have been with all the discomforts of those final days, which I currently experience in such a real way.