Christmas - Fun Insights & Facts About the 12 Days of Christmas!

The twelve days of Christmas is also known as Christmastide and refers to the twelve festive days after Christmas that climax on the 6th January. Celebrated since medieval times, thee idea of 12 days as a length for the celebrations has a few different interpretations with the most popular being that it came from a sequence of Holy Bible verses and the belief that it took 12 days for the Three Kings to travel to Bethlehem to visit the manger where Jesus was born. Pagan traditions were combined with religious roots for the festival.

The twelve days and nights are celebrated in widely varying ways in different countries around the world. In some countries gifts are given only on Christmas night while in other countries gifts are exchanged only on the twelfth night and in other countries gifts are exchanged each of the twelve nights.

The first day of the Twelfth Night was traditionally St Stephens Day which later became known as 'Boxing Day'. A public holiday celebrated in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom where Boxing Day has been a Bank Holiday in Britain since 1871. Boxing Day is not practiced in Russia, other European counties or America. The popular theory in Australia is that it came about due to 'alms boxes' being placed in churches during the festive season to collect money for the poor.

Boxing Day started in England in the Middle Ages. It was a day traditionally marked by the giving of Christmas boxes to workers who served them Christmas day. Servants were given the day off to spend with their families since they could not celebrate together Christmas day. A box full of left over food was given to them to enjoy with their families.

In Dublin St Stephen's Day, 26th December is the first day of Leopardstown's most famous horse-race meeting called the Christmas Festival, which lasts for four days. St Stephen is the patron saint of horses, so it is fitting that this day has become synonymous with horse racing.

In the Middle Ages 12 days were filled with continuous feasting and merry making. It was a welcomed break for the workers and all work ceased accept for the looking after of animals. For 12 days a Yule log was kept alight and it was considered a bad luck to not keep it burning for the entire duration of the 12 days. The Yule log was originally part of the Winter Solstice festivals before it later became part of the 12 days of Christmas festivities.

The twelve days of Christmas 'Feast of Fools' as it was known in the Middle Ages was a great celebration. It was mostly a British holiday custom. Usually a peasant is chosen as the 'Abbot of Misrule' or 'King of Misrule' or 'Abbot of Unreason', as the official who managed Christmas festivities. The Feast of Fools was drunken wild partying, pantomimes, singing and dancing. This official generally had an assistant 'Fool' to help presided over the celebrations. These mock officials usually served from 12 days to 3 months arranging and overseeing festivities and entertainment. Role reversals were common with masters serving their slaves. Some slaves even held prominent public positions during this time. The Council of Basel in 1431 outlawed the Feast of Fools yet it survived but the tradition was put down again in 1555 in England by Catholic Queen Mary I.

Popular in the 18th century, the Twelfth Night was traditionally the biggest night for partying and gift giving. On the twelfth night people would disguise themselves with outrageous costumes and animal masks. Pantomimes were popular to be performed and they mocked traditional authority with rules were turned upside down. Another tradition was for men to dress as women and women to dress as men. Celebrations always followed with the eating of a Twelve Night Cake. This cake was particularly popular in Germany, Holland and England. France had a similar cake but was called "Cake of the Kings" that honored The Three Kings. A pea was baked inside and whoever finds it in their slice is declared Queen or King. It is a fun tradition where if a woman is declared Queen she picks her King and if a man declared King he picks his Queen. Later evolved the game known as "charades" played out on the Twelfth Night. It is believed to have arisen out of the Middle Ages celebrations. Cards were presented and you had to act out over the Twelfth Night the character on your card.

The Victorian upper classes in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were famous for giving miniature porcelain shoes as keepsakes for good luck on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. The miniature shoes were a symbol of contentment and prosperity and a popular Christmas-time gift.

Today the Twelfth Night celebrations are nothing more than a faint memory as they are no longer practiced. The Twelfth Night is considered a holy day, a celebration for the The Three Kings. It is also considered the day to take down and put away your Christmas tree and decorations.

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