This week, in addition to being Christmastide (the 12 days of Christmas), we celebrate and recognized a Triduum of Feast Days plus One. Yesterday, specifically two days after Christmas, we celebrated the Feast of St. Stephen, today, December 27th, we celebrate the Feast Day of St. John and tomorrow, the 28th, we recognized Holy Innocents’ day. On January 1st, we celebrate Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.  However, since St. Stephen’s Day was Sunday this year, each of these Feast Days has been transferred to the 27th, 28th and 29th.
A little bit about each…

The Feast Day of St. Stephen
Appropriately, we celebrated St. Stephen with a Deacon’s Mass on Sunday. Stephen was, according to the Acts of the Apostles, a deacon in the early Church at Jerusalem who angered members of various synagogues with his teachings. The only source for information about St. Stephen is in the New Testament book, the Acts of the Apostles. Stephen is first mentioned as one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food and charitable aid to poorer members of the community in the early church.
In the synagogues of Hellenistic Jews, Stephen performed his teachings and “signs and wonders”.  Members challenged Stephen’s teachings, but he bested them in debate. Furious at this humiliation, they suborned false testimony that Stephen preached blasphemy against Moses and God. In a long speech to the Sanhedrin, comprising almost the whole of Acts chapter 7, Stephen presents his view of the history of Israel. 
Stephen faced two accusations: that he had declared that Jesus would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem and that he had changed the customs of Moses. Stephen  denounced his listeners as “stiff-necked” people who, just as their ancestors had done, resist the Holy Spirit.  The crowd could contain their anger no longer. Stephen looked up and cried, “Look! I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God!” The people from the crowd threw the first stones.  Stephen prayed that the Lord would receive his spirit and his killers be forgiven, sank to his knees, and “fell asleep”, becoming  the first Christian martyr.
Artistic representations often show Stephen with a crown symbolizing martyrdom, three stones, martyr’s palm frond, censer, and often holding a miniature church building. Stephen is often shown as a young, beardless man with a tonsure, wearing a deacon’s vestments.
The second day after Christmas is also called Boxing Day, originating as a holiday to give gifts to the poor. The tradition of giving money and other gifts to those in need dates to the Middle Ages. The tradition may come from a custom in the late Roman/early Christian era wherein alms boxes placed in churches were used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen, the second day of Christmastide.

The Feast Day of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist
St. John the Apostle, also called the Evangelist was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus playing a leading role in the early church at Jerusalem.
His brother was James, another of the Twelve Apostles.
Church tradition is that John is the author of the Gospel of John and four other books of the New Testament – the three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation.
John is referred to as “beloved disciple”, and “loved by Jesus as a brother”.

John (the future Evangelist) is present when John the Baptist points out Jesus as the “Lamb of God” then, with Andrew, spends the day with Him; he was one of the three who witnessed the Transfiguration. With Peter, John was sent to prepare the Passover Meal, was the lone apostle at the foot of the cross at Calvary and, as instructed by Jesus “Here is your mother” (John 19:26-27), takes care of Mary. After the Ascension and Pentecost, again with Peter, John takes a prominent role in the founding of the church.
It is believed that John was the youngest of the apostles and survived them all having lived on for another generation after the martyrdom of his brother James, dying at Ephesus sometime after AD 98, during the reign of Trajan.
In Medieval iconography, John is depicted with a chalice, often with a serpent emerging from it. This symbol is a reference to a legend from the Acts of John (an apocryphal text), in which John was challenged to drink a cup of poison to demonstrate the power of his faith (the poison being symbolized by the serpent). Other common attributes include a book or scroll, in reference to his writings, and an eagle, which symbolizes the high-soaring, inspirational quality of these writings.

Feast of the Holy Innocents
On this feast day we recognize the massacre of young children in Bethlehem by King Herod in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus. These children were regarded by the early church as the first martyrs. In Rome, it was a day of fasting and mourning.
Also known as Childermas, the account in Matthews’ Gospel is King Herod’s reaction to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The Magi arrive in Jerusalem looking for guidance as to where they can find the newborn King of the Jews. Herod directs them to Bethlehem and asks them to return to him and report their findings. The Magi were warned in a dream not to do so and did not return.
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under…”
- Matthew 2:16
For some it is customary to give the youngest child in a home the power to rule for the day, from meals to where to go and what to do. Some cultures allow children to play pranks like on April Fool’s Day or, to have their toys blessed at a Mass to celebrate the these young Saints of God.

The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
Celebrated January 1st, eight days after Christmas, this feast day commemorates the naming of the child Jesus; as recounted in the Gospel read on that day, “at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”