Twelve Days of Christmas

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Wednesday, 26th December 2007

Here in Singapore, there is only one Christmas public holiday - 25 December itself.

In England, 26 December is also a holiday -- Boxing Day.

Yet there was a time when Christmastide lasts 12 days.

I did a Wikipedia search about the "Twelve Days of Christmas", and this is what was returned...

The Twelve Days of Christmas and the associated evenings of those twelve days (Twelve-tide), are the festive days beginning the evening of Christmas Day (December 25) through the morning of Epiphany (January 6). The associated evenings of the twelve days begin on the evening before the specified day. Thus, the first night of Christmas is December 25–26, and Twelfth Night is January 5–6. This period is also known as Christmastide.

There is a song entitled "The Twelve Days of Christmas" where the singer sings about gifts that his "true love" gave to him on each of the twelve days. On the surface, it may seem like a fun and meaningless song. But do you know there are hidden meanings behind the lyrics?

There was a period in the history of the church where Christians could not openly profess their faith because of persecution.

This song was composed during that period, and the gifts and their hidden meanings are shown on the right.

Anyway, check out this version by Christian rock band Relient K that I found on YouTube: