I had planned to do a special post twelve days before December 25 to begin the Twelve Days of Christmas. I decided that I needed to do a little research first on the origin of this practice.
The Twelve Days of Christmas is possibly the most misunderstood part of the church year among Christians. The first day of Christmas actually begins on the evening of December 25th with the following day considered the First Day of Christmas and then includes Epiphany on January 6.
Epiphany is usually celebrated as the time the Wise Men arrived to present gifts to the baby Jesus (Matt. 2:1-12).
By the 16th century, some cultures had combined the Twelve Days of Christmas with festivals celebrating the changing of the year. These were usually associated with driving away evil spirits for the start of the new year.
The song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is usually seen as simply a nonsense song for children. However, some have suggested that it is a song of Christian instruction dating to the 16th century religious wars in England, with hidden references to the basic teachings of the Faith. The "true love" mentioned in the song is not an earthly suitor, but refers to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents refers to every Christian.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Twelve Days of Christmas
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5 comments:
Great research....I had thought that the twelve Days of Christmas was after Christmas....I think I heard that somewhere.
Twelve Days of giving...that would b fun, but an awful lot of planning!
When I was growing up, my Grandmother was always sure to add some type of German heritage to the Christmas season. As such, her Christmas tree would go up on Christamas eve and stay up until "little Christmas" which is January 6th. This is the time that my Grandmother still celebrates to this day, although since she is now in her 80's the tree typically goes up earlier as she needs someone to help get it in from the field.
Neat - I didn't realize that it all began Dec. 25th
Driving home from work today the radio was playing Bob and Doug Mackenzie"s version of this song.It's not quite what you're writing about as the words go like this "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Beer."... somehow I think they've swayed away from the original meaning!!!
Second and third verse "Three french toast, two turtle necks ... and a beer."
Pretty bad- EH!
Shari,
We have a christmas CD with all Canadian artists on it...the 12 days of Christmas song is on it. The kids think it is soooooo hilarious! It is too, EH?
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