Christmas Octave

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While showing gratitude, you help yourself better than you are helping others, simply because while feeling thankful for everything you are, and not just for whatever you own, God is able to fulfill your life with love and kindness. A very simple and yet utterly necessary way to show gratitude, is to listen to others (REALLY listening to them).

An octave is the eight-day period during which Christmas is celebrated, and includes the actual feast. The eighth day is also called the octave or “octave day,” and days in between are said to be “within the octave”:

Octave means an eight-day celebration, that is, the prolongation of a feast to the eighth day inclusive. The feast itself is considered the first day, and it is followed by six days called “days within the octave.” The eighth or octave day is kept with greater solemnity than the “days within the octave”.

From Christmas Day until January 1st, the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, is the Octave Day of Christmas. The Liturgy gives the clues that every day within the octave is treated the same as the original feast day of the Nativity of our Lord.

"Celebrating the most sacred night (day)

on which blessed Mary the immaculate Virgin

brought forth the Savior for this world,

and in communion with those whose memory we venerate,

especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary,

Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ...

Finally, the Gloria is repeated each day of the Octave."