The 12 Days of Christmas
Everybody has sung the carol, and almost everybody knows that it's five golden rings, even if he or she is a little unsure how many lords are leaping and how many ladies dancing. But this year (this article was written in 1998) the merchants have decided to promote the twelve days before December 25th as if those were the days in the song.
They are not.
The Twelve Days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day. Christmas Day is the First Day of Christmas. The Twelfth Day of Christmas is the Epiphany, that is, January 6th; a festival celebrating the visit of the Wise Men, the Three Kings (another song) to the manger. Shakespear wrote a play called Twelfth Night, and it is to the rowdy Medieval festival held on the night of the Twelfth Day of Christmas that his title refers.
The whole Christmas Season proper begins with the First Sunday of Advent; the period of time defined by the four Sundays before Christmas Day. So, it is legitimate to put up your tree and decorations four weeks before Chrisitmas Day, though tradtional families wait to put up the tree at least until the third Sunday of Advent (there are theological reasons, but you don't need to worry about them if you are just looking for a reason to celebrate), or more usually until Christmas Eve (other decorations are more modern, and I don't see any good reason why they can't go up earlier in Advent).
But the Chrisitmas Season ends with Twelfth Night. In olden times it was on Epiphany that people exchanged gifts, in honor of the gifts brought to the manger by the Wise Men; hence the litany of presents building up to the Big Gift-Giving Day: Epiphany. A charming custom, really, that stretches out the surprizes for twelve whole days instead of one big orgy at the beginning; and Twelfth Night is a really good occassion for a final holiday party, the first big party of the New Year. (The New Year celebration six days earlier is really a goodbye party for the old year and a welcoming in of the new; so it's not really the first party of the new year, but a party between the years.)
So, ripping down the tree on the Second Day of Christmas (the way the merchants are these days promoting, so they can start their next sale) is really gross. --Next time somebody makes fun of you for having your tree up 'too long,' just tell them you are celebrating Christmas, and not the Great Greed Festival.
As for the Twelve Days before Christmas: well, as the media keep telling us that they account for the major amounts of money the merchants take in, it would be quite legitimate to call them The Twelve Days of Commerce.
Given that the media these days mainly inform us of sales figures and gross profits rather than suggesting that we be kind to one another at this time of year, it might be appropriate for some ad executive to essay a carol on that topic.
--Rt. Rev. D. C. Studebaker
Christmas, 1998
