I was wondering the other day why we have a “Christmas Eve”? Then, only a few days later, it’s another “eve” to celebrate a new year. There are 11 federal holidays, so why do only 2 get eves?
If I had to guess, I’d say Christmas gets an “eve” because there’s just too much excitement for one day. Because, generally speaking, Christmas Day is such a happy and celebrated occasion, all that joy just had to spill over to the day before. New Year’s Day might have a similar reason, except that the excitement isn’t about the day particularly. It’s more about the ending of a year and a fresh beginning. A brand new day, a brand new year. Anything is possible.
Both Christmas and January 1st have a lot of anticipation building up to them. No other holidays have nearly as much excitement for their coming. I mean, when’s the last time Walmart started selling stuff months ahead of time for Labor Day?
I also learned that Christmas Eve, throughout history, was the beginning of the celebration of Jesus’s birth. This goes way back to early Jewish faith and the Bible talking about a day being evening, then morning. It is also believed that Jesus was born at night, so there could be a tie-in with that, as well.
No matter the history of these two “eve” days, at least they are both positive experiences for the majority of humanity. It’s not like there’s a gigantic-future-of-mankind-and-everything-changed kind of mistake associated with them. Thanks a lot Eve and Adam!
But seriously, if there is any deeper meaning, it would be that there’s the exact opposite of a mistake on Christmas Eve. More accurately, it’s a gigantic-future-of-mankind-and-everything-changed kind of hero born for us.
Merry Christmas!
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 