First of all, most Americans don't even know what the twelve days of Christmas are. They are the twelve days from December 26 to January 6. In many other countries, Christmas is not a day of partying and gift giving, but a day of religious solemnity. That is, on Christmas, they actually observe Christmas. The day of giving gifts is January 6, sometimes called Epiphany or Three Kings' Day. The custom to which the populr song refers is the custom of giving gradually nicer gifts on each of the twelve days.
The Biggest untruth about the song going around today is that it was written as some coded reference to Biblical truths. Such as the two turtle doves meaning the two testaments etc. This makes as no sense as there is no connection between the items in the song and what they are supposed to represent. How am I supposed to remember testaments from turtle doves, or gospels from calling birds? It's hard enough remembering the entire song without having to remember what everything stands for. There is an excellent article about this on Snopes.com here http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp
I don't mean to ruin this for anyone but I don't mind letting the truth get in the way of a good story.
Great post Brian! Congratulations on the book! I am glad to see you are doing well. It is funny how you run across people over the years. - Tasha
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you after all this time. Thanks for reading.
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