50 Fun Facts About 12 Days of Christmas

Where were the words of the carol first published, in 1780?

The book was called Mirth Without Mischief and appeared in London. No music was printed with it.

What was the title of that 1780 children's book?

It printed the words but no tune. The familiar melody arrived more than a century later.

What kind of parlour entertainment do early sources say the song began as?

Players repeated a growing verse and paid a forfeit for mistakes. That is why the list keeps piling up.

Who arranged the standard version of the carol, published in 1909?

His arrangement was published by Novello & Co in 1909. The drawn-out 'five gold rings' is his own addition.

Which part of the tune is credited as an original addition rather than traditional?

Frederic Austin wrote it into his 1909 arrangement. The rest of the melody is much older.

What did the popular claim that the carol is a coded Catholic catechism turn out to be?

Snopes examined it and found no support. The story still circulates every December.

Peter and Iona Opie suggested the song may have come from where, if the partridge is taken literally?

Partridges did not perch in English pear trees. The bird's habits point across the Channel.

Which bank has published a tongue-in-cheek index of the carol's gift prices since 1984?

It totals the cost of every item in the song. In 2024 the figure hit a record high.

If you buy every gift on every day as the song describes, how many items do you end up with?

That total is the 'True Cost of Christmas' version of the index. It is one item short of a year's worth.

After the dancers, which gift was the priciest item on the 2024 Christmas Price Index?

Swans breed unpredictably, so their supply is uncertain. Livestock prices move the index more than jewellery does.

What record did the True Cost of Christmas reach in 2024?

Prices had recovered strongly from 2021 onwards. Buying the song outright is not a cheap hobby.

Which day opens the twelve-day festive season in Western Christianity?

They end with Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve on the evening of 5 January. The season is properly called Christmastide.

Which 6th-century church assembly proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany a sacred season?

That is where the fixed twelve-day season comes from. The feasting tradition long outlived the ruling.

What is historically considered unlucky about Christmas decorations?

Leaving them up past Candlemas is thought just as bad. The window is narrower than most people assume.

Which Dickens novella preserves the older twelve-day traditions of plum pudding, roast goose and wassail?

Victorian writers helped fix the modern image of the season. The feasting they describe belongs to a much older calendar.

In some households, on which two days of the twelve are gifts exchanged?

That means 25 December and 5 January. Contemporary customs also include lighting a candle for each day.

What do Eastern Christians principally commemorate at Epiphany?

Western churches mark the visit of the Magi; Eastern churches mark the baptism of Jesus. The evening before is Twelfth Night.

Which ritual do Orthodox churches perform at Theophany?

Priests bless rivers, lakes and the sea, and in some countries swimmers dive for a cross. The Western church marks the Magi instead.

What do children in Spain and Latin America leave out on the evening before Three Kings' Day?

The gifts arrive on the morning of 6 January. The three kings, not Santa, do the delivering.

What is wassail, as a drink?

It is drunk from a communal bowl at Christmastide. The word began as a greeting rather than a recipe.

What does the Old Norse phrase behind the word 'wassail' mean?

The Old English equivalent was wes hál. It was a toast long before it was a drink.

What is the purpose of orchard wassailing?

Scaring off evil spirits is supposed to secure a good autumn harvest. It is traditionally done on Twelfth Night.

What happens to the person who finds the hidden figurine in their slice?

The baby symbolises luck and prosperity. The cake is served from Epiphany through to Carnival.

What do the three traditional colours of a Louisiana king cake stand for?

Purple is justice, green is faith and gold is power. The cake itself is usually brioche dough.

What is the French equivalent of the king cake called?

It is flaky puff pastry, traditionally filled with frangipane. Modern versions use chocolate or fruit.

Which holiday falls on the day after Christmas Day?

It usually coincides with Saint Stephen's Day. British football leagues traditionally play a full programme.

Where does the name of the 26 December holiday come from?

They collected money or presents for good service through the year. The custom was British and spread across the Commonwealth.

Whose feast day usually coincides with that same holiday?

He is the subject of the carol Good King Wenceslas, which opens on that feast. The holiday is observed across several Commonwealth nations.

What sporting tradition marks that holiday in Britain?

Fixtures are deliberately scheduled for local derbies. Racing and rugby also take place.

Which two dates are both claimed as the twelfth night?

It depends on whether you start counting on Christmas Day or the day after. Both are defended vigorously.

In the the twelfth night cake custom, what does finding the bean make a man?

A lady who finds a pea becomes queen. The custom survives in king cakes and galettes today.

Where and when was Shakespeare's holiday-titled comedy first known to be performed?

The date was Candlemas night, 2 February. The play takes its title from the holiday, not its plot.

Which superstition surrounds Christmas decorations in English-speaking countries?

Leaving them up too long is considered just as unlucky. Twelfth Night is the deadline either way.

Which contemporary custom marks all twelve of the days?

Households also sing the corresponding verse of the carol. A yule log is lit on Christmas Eve and burned a little each night.

In medieval England, what filled the whole twelve-day period?

It climaxed on the last of the twelve nights, the traditional end of the season on 5 January. Work more or less stopped.

Which word was added to the start of every verse in the 1909 arrangement?

'On the first day of Christmas' became the standard. Earlier printings simply began 'The first day of Christmas'.

Which publisher issued the 1909 arrangement of the carol?

It fixed both the tune and the words in their modern form.

Who has maintained the bank's Christmas gift index since 1986?

The index tracks the dollar cost of every item in the song. In 2024 the full version reached a record.

On which day is orchard wassailing traditionally celebrated?

That is Twelfth Night, or Epiphany Eve. Cider-making counties still do it with shotguns and singing.

During which weeks is king cake traditionally eaten?

The season starts on 6 January. In New Orleans that means weeks of cake.

Which singer-songwriter performed the carol with the Muppets in a 1979 TV special?

The special, A Christmas Together, spawned an album of the same name. The Muppets have recorded the song five separate times with different characters taking the gifts.

VeggieTales parodied the carol as 'The 8 ___ Foods of Christmas' — which cuisine?

It first appeared on the 1996 album A Very Veggie Christmas and was later rerecorded as a Silly Song for the 2011 episode The Little Drummer Boy.

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded the carol in 1949 for which label?

Perry Como cut his own version for RCA Victor four years later, but shuffled the gifts so that lords leap on the eleventh day and ladies dance on the tenth.

Old broadsides point to which English city as the carol's likely place of origin?

William Henry Husk wrote in 1864 that the carol turned up on broadsides printed there over the previous 150 years, and many other 19th-century citations come from the same area.

In the original 'four colly birds', what does the dialect word 'colly' mean?

So the fourth-day gift was blackbirds. Frederic Austin's 1909 arrangement swapped the puzzling word for 'calling', which is what most people sing today.

Some scholars think 'pear tree' is a corruption of which French word?

Perdrix means partridge, so the first gift may once have simply been 'a partridge, a partridge' sung in two languages. An 1867 antiquarian first floated the idea.

In the northern counties of England the song was often known by what title?

Northern versions simply had fewer gifts. Elsewhere the gifts varied so much that some verses turned into alliterative tongue-twisters.

Bob and Doug McKenzie's 1982 'hoser' version stops after which day of Christmas?

Its gifts run from eight comic books down to a beer in a tree, and in the outro Bob complains that Doug should have bought donuts to stretch it to thirteen days.

In Frank Kelly's 1982 hit 'Christmas Countdown', who receives the twelve disastrous gifts?

The gifts from a lady named Nuala wreck the house he shares with his mother. The record reached number 8 in Ireland and number 26 in the UK.

What is the carol's number in the Roud Folk Song Index?

The low number reflects how early it was catalogued among English-language folk songs. Its best-known tune is only one of many that have been attached to the words.