Epiphany Eve

The relevant festival for today seems to be informal: it is the eve of Epiphany, which brings about some duties and preparations. The formal feasts for today are several, including St. Syncletica who died after she gave away her wealth to the poor; and St. John Neumann, an important Eastern European figure of the 19th century. 

For the purpose of the Christmas holiday, the Epiphany marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas (but not the Christmastide, which lasts until Candlemas at the end of what is also known as Epiphanytide -- see discussion below).

In many Western Churches, the eve of the feast is celebrated as Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve). The Monday after Epiphany is known as Plough Monday.

Popular Epiphany customs include Epiphany singing, chalking the door, having one's house blessed, consuming Three Kings Cake, winter swimming, as well as attending church services. It is customary for Christians in many localities to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve (Twelfth Night),  although those in other Christian countries historically remove them on Candlemas, the conclusion of Epiphanytide. According to the first tradition, those who fail to remember to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve must leave them untouched until Candlemas, the second opportunity to remove them; failure to observe this custom is considered inauspicious.

So if you are going to remove Christmas decorations according to this tradition, today is the day for it (as we are doing here). If you want to eat Three Kings Cakes tomorrow, today may be the day for preparing them. At least if you are Roman Catholic; the Eastern church has a whole different set of dates for all of this, and a more intense set of traditions about it.

If you are wondering about the name, it is Greek, which might explain why the Greek Orthodox church is more wedded to it.

The word Epiphany is from Koine Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epipháneia, meaning manifestation or appearance. It is derived from the verb φαίνειν, phainein, meaning "to appear". In classical Greek it was used for the appearance of dawn, of an enemy in war, but especially of a manifestation of a deity to a worshiper (a theophany). In the Septuagint the word is used of a manifestation of the God of Israel (2 Maccabees 15:27). In the New Testament the word is used in 2 Timothy 1:10 to refer either to the birth of Christ or to his appearance after his resurrection, and five times to refer to his Second Coming.