When the parties are all over and the presents all unwrapped, Christmas remains. When the family trips are over and the kids are (finally) back in school, Christmas is still here. The City of Boston is happy to pick my Christmas tree up for composting on the January 3 but that’s only the Tenth Day of Christmas, and my tree is here to stay. (Although that part’s more procrastination than piety.)

I say all this not just as an old-fashioned and curmudgeonly comment about celebrating the full Twelve Days of Christmas, but because, to me, the disconnect between the hubbub of the holiday schedule and the quiet of this first week of January comes as a huge relief.

Our cultural Christmas begins in late November and peaks on Christmas Eve, with holiday parties and Christmas Spectaculars and NORAD’s annual Santa Tracker. But when the rush of activity dies down, the Church’s celebration is just beginning. And it extends far beyond those Twelve Days.

This week, the baby Jesus has only just been given his name, on Monday. The baby’s still half-asleep, his parents still figuring out how to raise their newborn child. This week, the Magi are still en route, with royal and unnerving gifts: gold for a king, frankincense for a god, the myrrh that perfumes bodies in the tomb. The days of Jesus’ ministry are far off; even the day when the precocious child wanders away to sit in the Temple won’t come until he’s twelve, an age unimaginable to his parents now. In forty days, they’ll go to the Temple for the first time, to present Jesus there: for now, they’re praying he’ll stay “tender and mild” for long enough for them to get some sleep.

The choirs of angels have faded from the sky. The shepherds have been called back to their fields. All the quiet, plain activities of life have started up. And yet Jesus remains, and Christmas remains, and the tidings of his birth remain good news—now that it’s quiet enough for us to hear them, maybe even better news than before—“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11)