How the Eighth Day of Christmas Helps Us Start the New Year
Today is the 1st of January, which means it's the 8th Day of Christmas. And on the 8th Day of Christmas, we celebrate what happened on the 8th day after Jesus' birth — His circumcision and naming. As we read in Luke 2:21, 'And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.' Since 1752, the 1st January has also been New Year's Day in this country. (Before that, we celebrated the New Year on 25th March - the Feast of the Annunciation.) It's probably fair to say that the Feast of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus gets a bit overshadowed by the New Year, but on this New Year's Day, I'd like to suggest that today's feast helps us start the New Year in thoroughly Christian way. New Year's resolutions are all around us. Many of them can be good things. Many of them get broken quite quickly. But today's Feast of the Circumcision and Nam
