[Dashing Dasher]

As Russian Orthodox, we called it Russian Christmas as children and always saved a gift to open on 1/6.

I will celebrate tomorrow - as I always do.

Dasher

[AreaMan]

I remember living in Madrid as a little rugrat and sitting on my dad's shoulders so I could see El Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos parade. It was a big deal in Spain.

Man, I could have used an X-box back then....I'd still be playing Halo 2 on legendary mode.

[visualops]

Greek Orthodox Old Calendar celebrate January 7th.
Why the different dates? Just curious. I never heard of the 6th until recently.

[fortunecookie]

Hey, we do that, too! Happy Russian Christmas!

We were raised as Catholics, but had numerous Russian Orthodox relatives (and Byzantine Cath), and always commemorate 'Russian' Christmas in the same way. Reserve (or buy on the post Christmas sales) one small gift to exchange, eat something special for dinner and attend Mass if possible. And always the tree and decorations are still in place. The waiting for Russian Christmas also reminded us in a unique way to focus on the Epiphany and Advent and the 12 days of the Christmas season.

As an aside, it reminds me of the Epiphany. In our diocese, it is sadly no longer celebrated on the 6th and this year the 'feast' on New Years was 'optional', my parish offered only one mass. Very sad that some of our own dioceses seem to be helping with the secularization of Christmas.