The logic is not to have the Church in nations (it's hardly just the USA) that transfer Epiphany be off-calendar from the rest of the Church for 6 days rather than 1 day. While the Theophany is has long been among the most major observances on the calendars of the Eastern Churches, the Baptism of the Lord as such is a relatively recent addition to the Western calendar.*

If we made Epiphany a HDoO in the USA, it would make for a a more logical calendar, but would effectively mean vastly fewer people observing the feast by attendance at Mass, esp. if the Jan 1st and Dec 8th HDoOs were retained as such. The USA is not a place where there has been widespread civic celebration of the day, though for Hispanic American Catholics, there has been a residue of observance from the nations whence they came.

Christmastide in the Western tradition has never been quite logical. (For example, the Octave of Christmas ranked lower than the Octaves of Easter and Pentecost in order to permit the many proper commemorations that fall on the second, third, fourth days of the Christmas Octave, and then others that arose later.)

* The Eastern tradition liturgically commemorates the adoration by the Magi on the feast of the Nativity itself, unlike the Western tradition (which only did so in an oblique way via the proper Last Gospel of Christmas Mass During The Day). The Theophany in the Eastern tradition is a Trinitarian feast, as is Pentecost in that tradition. While the Baptism of The Lord was effectively commemorated via the propers of the Octave Day of The Epiphany, the more express commemoration is relatively recent.

Just a note: the Amish close up shop on January 6. And Catholics can't be bothered to go to Mass?

In my opinion we need to make the Christmas season end with the Feast of the Presentation on February 2nd again. To do this we need to add 1-2 weeks of extra Sundays in Christmas. One of the these extra Sundays should come from making the Wedding at Cana an ABC Feast to keep all three of the original Epiphanies in the Christmas season.

This will make winter Ordinary Time quite short, to the point of it being a little odd to call it Ordinary Time. We should then rename it something new and edgy, like, maybe, Septuagesima.

Making Christmastide *longer* is a solution in search of a problem. (As it is, the parochial celebration of Eastertide as a festive season other than via liturgical propers is a challenge to sustain. Heck, keeping Christmas *Day* preeminent in Catholic parish liturgies as opposed to Christmas Eve is merely the first problem in Christmastide properly speaking.) Americans start tossing their Christmas trees to the curb on the second day of the Octave, streaming radio/TV music stations drop "holiday music" like a hot potato on that very day; America quickly moves on to Bowls/Playoffs/Super Bowl Season, their real January cultural season.

There was a *cultural* season between Christmastide and Lent in Catholic lands (not Gesimatide, which was only liturgical): the many modes of Carnival - which among other things usually featured the brightest illuminations of homes in the eras before gas and electric lighting. Other than in certain mobbed tourist destinations, Carnival is a small residue of its former self, as it were.

(There is, of course, an antipode to this, an American media place that keeps the *civic* celebration of Christmasy-tide alive 12 months of the year: Hallmark-like cable channels, offering that celebration year-round.)

1. Fake news for the most part in liturgical terms, except for the use of the Marian antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater. Candlemas is 40 days after Christmas because it follows the pattern of the Jewish purification ritual; that said, it often occurred well within pre-Lent (Gesimatide).

2. The commemoration of Wedding at Cana might be referred to in hymnody within Epiphanytide, but it was never part of Christmastide properly speaking.

Christmastide has never been logical, neat, and tidy this way. That may bother people who desire or expect things to be logical, neat and tidy, but it doesn't change it.

Yes, it was separate, not part of Christmastide - it could extend into mid-February, past Candlemas (the latest date for Septuagesima was 22 Feb; the earliest, 18 Jan). It was Sundays after Epiphany, a way of ordinally numbering green Sundays/weeks, just as Sundays after Pentecost (Trinity in the Anglican calendar) was, and those were not part of Eastertide.

Misunderstanding. Not sure how "popular" it is/was concerning the liturgical calendar*: it's nothing I've encountered on the ground.

* In terms of cultural practices, I am quite aware of the blurring of Christmastide into Carnival as a general period of festivity before Lenten abstinence and fasting, especially in Catholic Germanic lands. It has no parallel in the liturgical calendar - considering that pre-Lent could begin as early as the 5th day after the octave day of Epiphany, it was not feasible liturgically.

I need to re-read something, but if remember correctly it's not that easy. Does anybody has easy access to a calendar & rubrics (e.g. a Liber Usualis) from the beginning of the 20th century? At least there is a long popular tradition of celebrating Christmastide until Candlemas, going back at least to the middle ages. There is the Ambrosian Rite which officially has Christmas season from 11th Nov to 2nd Feb, sticking to the number of 40 days before and after the feast. The Alma Redemptoris is a hint. I also like to surprise people by telling them that even in the old rite Christmastide does not last until 2/2, but I think its not a black/white thing.

I for one am stunned that Liam took on this burden because I too labored under this misunderstanding. I leave the crèche but don’t necessarily make an effort to leave trees up at home (ours are artificial so it’s a matter of will). The church decorations can come down after the 13th, the crèche aside imho.

The reason I am aware of this is because my paternal ancestry is Germanic Catholic. St Nicholas brought the creche and the tree on the night of Christmas Eve after any younger children were sent to bed: IOW, Christmastide in the domestic church actually began on Christmas! We kept our tree and creche up well into January, usually for ~ a month, past the "Little Christmas" celebrated by families dominated by British Isles ancestry*; the only other families I knew to do this were southern German/Austrian-Americans. But it wasn't "Christmastide" in any proper liturgical sense, and no one thought it was - when you could see purple vestments by later in January, there was no way anyone was thinking "hey, isn't it great it's still Christmastide!" (None of our families was singing Compline at home before going to bed, so the Marian antiphon issue was completely out of our awareness.)

Btw, I love the feast of the Presentation. I hope many parishes offer the most solemn form of procession this coming Sunday, 2 February.

* My maternal ancestry is Irish & Polish. It's from my maternal grandmother that I learned the purpose of the Irish practice of putting candles in windows, and also keeping a pot of hot food on the stove and the front door visibly ajar on the night Christmas Eve. The purpose was hospitality to the potential mystery stranger who might call that night: the candle (placed by the family in a small, window-sill-sized, log chosen, fashioned, and decorated by the children of the cottage on Christmas Eve morning while they were fasting) was a sign that such a stranger would be welcomed to hospitality (hot food) should he grace the cottage with his presence. My late mother, her daughter, kept the (electric) window candle(s) on that night, and kept the front door ajar with hot food on the stove (as my parents busily set up the tree and creche and set out gifts and stockings) until the early 1970s, when burglaries became more of thing on that night of the year. Which raises the question: how many of us who put candles in our windows each December would welcome a stranger who knocked on our doors on the night of Christmas Eve?

I discovered recently that Fontgombault has Holy Family (and Clear Creek does as a result) in the modern place. The Milanese kick it out to the last Sunday of January. They do not have the Holy Name at all there. They also keep the Comites on Sunday and the Circumcision on Jan 1. Fontgombault uses the Marian Mass with the old office on that day.

I’m not saying to emulate Fontgombault here. It’s just interesting.