Welcome to the Strong Women podcast, where we explore the beautifully diverse ways God invites and equips women to participate in his story.

We're here to encourage one another as we step out of the shallow definitions of what it means to be a woman

and into the flourishing life that comes when we walk out our design. I'm your host Sarah Stone Street.

I'm so glad you're here. Merry Christmas, everybody. We've made it to Christmas. We made it through

Advent together. And

for anybody that joined us in the reading of the Christmas Carol, I hope that that blessed you

and that you were able to read it with just different eyes this year. As I was, I was able to

see it from a different perspective, having heard from so many different people, the insights that

they found in the Christmas Carol.

So I hope that was helpful for you guys as well. So it's Christmas Day. That's when we're

releasing this episode. And Christmas is actually a 12-day season. It's the 12 days of Christmas.

And there's all kinds of feasts during this time, like the Feast of St. Stephen,

remembering the very first Christian martyr.

That happens on December 26th.

And then there's the Feast of the Holy Innocence, where we remember those that were innocent that died because of Herod's wrath in trying to find Jesus.

Remember that part of the story? When Herod had all the babies under two killed, and Jesus and his family fled to Egypt,

but Herod took the life of so many little babies. There's lots of other little feast days

where we remember significant first in the Christian life after Christ

rose and ascended and the church really started to form. So you can find those, really anywhere.

Just Google the 12 days of Christmas. You'll probably find some random things, but you'll find

the list of all the different feast days, and it's kind of fun to just

celebrate those in small ways. Then the 12 days of Christmas ends with Epiphany, which is January 6th.

...