Twelve Days of Christmas

I love the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Every year the school I work in does a door decorating contest based on a theme. The year this song was the theme, my class's door took first prize! We did a bunch of research on the meaning of each gift and took pictures of the kids representing each thing. It was awesome.

Ever wonder about the traditions the song was based on? I do. Anyway, I decided to look it up.

Traditionally, the twelve days of Christmas began on Christmas day and ran to Twelfth Night (January 5th). Apparently, the different orthodox churches developed their own versions of how to celebrate the twelve days. So some of them end it on the 5th of January, and others end it on the 6th with the Epiphany. A lot of people tend to think it ends on Christmas Day, because that is the end of the American Christmas commercial season.

If you're interested in finding more information, I got mine from Wikipedia and Holy Trinity.

I have never celebrated the twelve days of Christmas before. But is seems like one tradition I should be incorporating. I know my kids would love getting a present a day twelve days in a row! Wouldn't you?

To that end, I am planning twelve days of gifts here on my blog. Every day between December 25th and January 5th I'll post about a different book and offer it free to a reader, chosen by a random drawing each day. To be eligible just leave me a comment with an email contact (I won't save the info. Just need it to let you know if your name is drawn). But be sure to come back each day to enter again. Should be a wild ride!