Centuries ago, Christmas was a raucous affair. It took place in the fallow winter months when chores were minimal. According to their budgets, people celebrated extravagantly; even the poor saved up pennies for treats like an orange for a child, a little extra ale and a goose for Christmas dinner, and the ingredients for the Christmas pudding so celebrated in song. The festivities lasted for twelve days, all the way until January fifth, Twelfth Night, which was celebrated with a big party featuring a cake with little objects baked inside to tell one's fortune for the new year. Epiphany was a more somber day, thinking of the Magi who, according to legend, reached the child Jesus on that date. In some societies, Christmas Day was reserved for worship, Epiphany for gift-giving to echo the gifts of the Magi. Yet other gifts were given on New Year's Day. And Christmas decorations, the fresh evergreens and the berried holly, could stay up until February 1, the day before the feast of Candlemas, the blessing of the candles.
Christmas eventually got so wild that the Puritans in England banned it completely, citing drunkenness, and wild customs like wassailing, in which roving bands of young men wandered around soliciting food (but mostly alcoholic drink) door to door becoming more drunken and violent as they went. When Christmas finally came back, it was a tamer holiday, eventually becoming a family-centered celebration.
Today we have been persuaded by the media and by retail sellers that the "twelve days of Christmas" are those last frantic twelve days before Christmas when you have to buy, buy, buy, to make certain everyone "has a merry Christmas," even though up until modern times Christmas wasn't primarily for gifts, but for seeing family and friends and mostly for having fun. Once any minimal gifts (mostly for children) were given and dinner was eaten, it was time for party games. If you had the least bit of room in your home, the furniture was cleared away, and our ancestors danced, more recently to records, earlier just to someone who had a fiddle or as little as a harmonica. They sang around a piano or a guitar, or they went caroling. Kids prepared for parties by making home-made taffy and using inexpensive crepe paper or even scraps of paper to make decorations. Today people open the gifts, eat dinner, sit down to watch some sports or the umpteenth rerun of It's a Wonderful Life, and some even tear down their tree by midnight. Christmas is over, after all!
No, it's just beginning.
In this horrible year, why not spread out Christmas cheer during the twelve days? Sure, you'll need to go back to work on the 26th. We don't get Boxing Day off like the British and the Canadians, after all. But you can still keep some of the spirit going: once the work day is over, continue to have special treats, give small gifts, have a game night, have a movie night with popcorn, go caroling around your neighborhood, drive to see a display of Christmas lights (usually they're up at least until January 1). Do some things for others as well: bring food to a food bank (they don't just need food during the holidays), give to a charity, help a neighbor (take a prompt from the graphic at right). Keep the spirit of Christmas glowing into the New Year.
☙ 50 Ideas to Celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas
☙ When Are the 12 Days of Christmas? And, How Do You Celebrate Them?
☙ Where Do the 12 Days of Christmas Come From?
☙ 12 Ideas for Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas
☙ Let's Bring Back the 12 Days of Christmas
☙ The "12 Days of Christmas" Song (No, it was not written as a Catholic Catechism, even though this charming "fact" is repeated on Catholic web pages! It was part of playing a party game.)☙ The Meaning of the 12 Days of Christmas (This article notes that the "calling birds" were in the original song as "colly birds"—"colly" or "coally," meaning black as in blackbirds, and that's the way I learned the song as a child in school.)
☙ Fact Check: the 12 Days of Christmas
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