97 Fun Facts About 12 Days of Christmas

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

The words first appeared around 1780 in an illustrated children's book printed in London, with no music; the familiar tune was only set down in 1909.

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

Early accounts describe a memory-and-forfeits game: each player repeated the growing list and paid a forfeit for a slip, which is why the gifts keep piling up.

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

Frederic Austin, a baritone and composer, published his arrangement in 1909; it became the standard melody, displacing the older folk tunes collected in the 1800s.

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

The drawn-out 'five gold rings' phrase was written by the 1909 arranger; the rest of the melody comes from much older folk versions of the song.

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

The 'secret catechism' story is incorrect: Snopes found no historical evidence for it, and none of the gifts is specific to Catholic rather than Anglican teaching.

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

The Opies noted that the red-legged partridge, which perches in trees, was only introduced to England from France in the 1770s, so they suggested a French origin.

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

PNC Financial's Christmas Price Index, begun in 1984, totals the cost of every gift in the song; the 2024 edition put one set of the twelve gifts at about $49,263.

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

Each gift repeats on every later day (12 partridges, 22 turtle doves, and so on), summing to 364 items, one short of a year's worth.

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

The 2024 True Cost of Christmas, which prices every gift on every day of the song, came to $209,272, up about 3.6% from $201,972 in 2023.

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

The twelve days run from Christmas Day, 25 December, to Twelfth Night on the evening of 5 January; the season is properly called Christmastide.

Which church assembly proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany a sacred season?

The Second Council of Tours in 567 declared the days between Christmas and Epiphany a festive season, the origin of the fixed twelve days.

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 features a roast goose and plum pudding at the Cratchits' table?

A Christmas Carol (1843) has the Cratchits carve a roast goose and flame a plum pudding; Dickens's vivid feast helped fix the Victorian image of the season.

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

In that custom presents come on the first day, Christmas Day, and the last, Twelfth Night; other families give a small gift on each of the twelve days.

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?

Children set out their shoes on the night of 5 January, with grass or hay and water for the Kings' camels; the Three Kings, not Santa, bring the gifts on 6 January.

What is wassail, as a drink?

Wassail is a hot mulled punch, usually cider or ale warmed with sugar, spices and roasted apples, shared from a communal bowl at Christmastide.

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

'Wassail' comes from Old Norse ves heill, 'be in good health', paralleling Old English wes hál; it was a toast long before it was a drink.

What is the purpose of orchard wassailing?

Wassailers sing and bang pots in the orchard to wake the cider apple trees and scare off evil spirits, hoping to secure a good autumn crop.

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?

The galette des rois is flaky puff pastry filled with frangipane and hiding a small charm, the fève; in southern France a brioche crown, the gâteau des rois, is preferred instead.

Which holiday falls on the day after Christmas Day?

Boxing Day, 26 December, is a public holiday in the UK and much of the Commonwealth; the name is first recorded in the 1830s.

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 falls on 26 December in the Western church calendar?

Saint Stephen's Day is 26 December in the Western calendar; the carol Good King Wenceslas opens with the king looking out 'on the feast of Stephen'.

What sporting tradition marks 26 December in Britain?

A full programme of league football on 26 December dates to the Football League's early years, with local derbies scheduled to cut travel; the King George VI Chase at Kempton is the day's big race.

Which two dates are both claimed as the twelfth night?

Counting from Christmas Day gives Twelfth Night on 5 January; counting from 26 December gives 6 January, so both dates are defended vigorously.

In the Twelfth Night cake custom, what does finding the bean make a man?

The man who finds the bean is King for the evening and the lady who finds the pea is Queen; the custom survives in king cakes and galettes.

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

Law student John Manningham's diary records Twelfth Night at Middle Temple Hall on Candlemas night, 2 February 1602; the play takes its title from the festivity, not its plot.

Which gift-bringer visits Italian children on the night before Epiphany?

La Befana, a broom-riding old woman, fills Italian children's stockings on the night of 5 January, the eve of Epiphany, with sweets for the good and coal for the naughty.

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?

Continuous feasting and revels filled the period, climaxing on Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the season on 5 January.

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?

Novello & Co, the London music publisher founded in 1811, issued the 1909 arrangement that fixed both the tune and the words in their modern form.

Who took over compiling the Christmas Price Index for its sponsoring bank in 1986?

Rebekah M. McCahan, an investment strategist at the sponsoring bank, took over compiling the index in 1986, pricing the twelve gifts each autumn.

On which day is orchard wassailing traditionally celebrated?

Orchard wassailing falls on the twelfth day of Christmastide, Twelfth Night, or in Somerset on 'Old Twelvey' (17 January); cider country keeps it up with shotguns, toast in the trees and singing.

During which weeks is king cake traditionally eaten?

King cake season runs from Epiphany on 6 January through Carnival to Mardi Gras, so New Orleans bakeries sell it for weeks.

Which singer-songwriter performed the carol with the Muppets in the 1979 TV special A Christmas Together?

John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together aired on ABC in December 1979 and spawned an album of the same name released that year.

VeggieTales parodied the carol as 'The 8 ___ Foods of Christmas'; which nationality's cuisine fills the blank?

Polish is the word; the song first appeared on the 1996 album A Very Veggie Christmas and was rerecorded as a Silly Song in 2011.

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

Crosby and the Andrews Sisters cut the carol for Decca on 10 May 1949; Perry Como's RCA Victor version followed in 1953.

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

Newcastle upon Tyne: William Henry Husk wrote in 1864 that the carol turned up on broadsides printed there over the previous 150 years.

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

Colly means coal-black, so the fourth-day gift was blackbirds; the 1909 arrangement swapped the puzzling word for 'calling', which is what most people sing.

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

Perdrix is French for partridge, so the first gift may once have been 'a partridge, une perdrix', sung half in each language before English ears heard 'pear tree'.

In the northern counties of England, the carol was often known by what alternative title?

The Ten Days of Christmas, because northern versions had only ten gifts; elsewhere the gifts varied so much that some verses turned into tongue-twisters.

Bob and Doug McKenzie's 1981 'hoser' version of the carol stops after which day?

Eighth: the hoser gifts run from 'eight comic books' back down to 'a beer in a tree', and the brothers quit there rather than press on to twelve.

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

Gobnait O'Lúnasa's letters chart the mayhem as Nuala's gifts wreck the house he shares with his mother; the 1982 Irish hit reached number 26 in the UK in 1984.

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

The carol is Roud 68 in Steve Roud's index of English-language folk songs; its familiar 1909 tune is only one of many that have been attached to the words.

The Christmas Price Index prices the lords of The Twelve Days of Christmas using pay rates from which art form?

Ballet salaries stand in for the lords because the United States recognises no titles of nobility, so the index hires male dancers from a Philadelphia company instead.

How is 28 December, Holy Innocents' Day in the twelve days of Christmas, marked in Spain and Latin America?

With practical jokes: the day works like April Fools' Day there, and the pranks even have their own name, inocentadas.

The 'turtle' in the turtle doves of The Twelve Days of Christmas is unrelated to the reptile; what is it named after?

Its cooing call is where the name comes from: Latin turtur simply imitates the sound. The doves' devotion to their mates also made 'turtle' a medieval term of endearment.

Which Irish nickname for Epiphany, the feast that follows Twelfth Night, recalls a swap of household roles?

Women's Christmas, or Nollaig na mBan, was the day men took on the household chores so that the women who had cooked all season could rest or go out together.

Which a cappella group won a record deal after its 1998 college performance of The Twelve Days of Christmas went viral?

Straight No Chaser formed at Indiana University in 1996; the clip sat unseen until a founder posted it in 2006, and Atlantic Records signed the reunited singers in 2008.

Which future US president married a wealthy widow in 1759 on Epiphany, the day after the twelve days of Christmas?

George Washington wed Martha Dandridge Custis, a 27-year-old widow with a large estate, and the couple settled at his Mount Vernon plantation.

Which US sitcom has salesman Andy send a co-worker the gifts of The Twelve Days of Christmas as her Secret Santa?

The Office has the live birds go badly wrong for receptionist Erin, who is furious with Andy; a dozen drummers in the parking lot later complete the gift.

Old folklore read the weather on the twelve days of Christmas, day by day, as a forecast for what?

Each month of the year had its matching day. Some families echo the idea today, giving a gift on each of the twelve as a wish for the corresponding month.

Which R&B group cut The Twelve Days of Christmas to 8 Days of Christmas for its 2001 holiday album's title track?

Destiny's Child re-sang the old carol's lyrics over a modern beat for 8 Days of Christmas, the trio's only Christmas album, part of which was recorded on a promotional trip to Japan.

Which tiny bird, once hunted and paraded on 26 December, names an Irish custom of the twelve days of Christmas?

The wren was revered as the king of the birds. Costumed Wrenboys in straw masks still parade a stuffed or fake one from house to house, playing music for donations.

In The Twelve Days of Christmas, who is said to send the singer every one of the gifts, day after day?

A true love sends the lot, and because each gift is repeated on every later day, the deliveries snowball from a single bird to dozens of arrivals at once.

Which farmyard birds arrive on the sixth day of The Twelve Days of Christmas, each one busy laying?

Geese a-laying are the sixth gift, and since they are sent again on each of the six days that follow, the singer ends up with forty-two of them.

Which musicians are the eleventh-day gift in the standard 1909 order of The Twelve Days of Christmas?

Pipers take the eleventh day in the familiar order, but versions disagree about the final four gifts, and some singers put the pipers as early as the ninth.

Which musical term covers both The Twelve Days of Christmas and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?

A cumulative song adds one new line per verse and then repeats every earlier one, so the carol's twelfth verse is twelve gifts long while its opening verse has only one.

Early printings of The Twelve Days of Christmas say each gift was 'sent'; which verb do North Americans usually sing?

Gave is a 20th-century variant that became especially common in North America; the early printings, from the 1780s on, all have the older wording.

Which comedian took the parody Redneck 12 Days of Christmas to number 18 on Billboard's country chart in 1996?

Jeff Foxworthy co-wrote it with Tim Wilson, and it kept coming back: the single re-entered the country chart every January for the next four years.

Childermas, on 28 December within the twelve days of Christmas, recalls infants killed on the orders of which ruler?

Herod the Great, king of Judea, is said to have ordered the deaths of Bethlehem's boys aged two and under; the church remembers them as the first Christian martyrs.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury, killed in his cathedral in 1170, has his feast on 29 December, within the twelve days?

Thomas Becket was cut down by four knights loyal to Henry II after years of quarrelling with the king over the Church's rights, and his feast is kept on the day he died.

Which older calendar, 13 days behind the Gregorian, puts Christmas on 7 January for Russia's Orthodox Church?

Julian dates still govern the feasts of churches such as Russia's, Serbia's and Georgia's, so their 25 December lands on the Gregorian 7 January and Epiphany follows on the 19th.

What do some households kindle on Christmas Eve, then burn a little more of on each of the twelve nights of Christmas?

A Yule log is the choice: in the English custom a portion was burned each evening until Twelfth Night, and the earliest record of a special Christmas log dates from 1184.

The Christmas Price Index treats the milkmaids of The Twelve Days of Christmas as unskilled workers paid at which rate?

Federal minimum wage sets the milkmaids' price, which critics say is too cheap: the index hires the workers but never budgets for a single cow for them to milk.

Which US state lends its name to a 'Style' rewrite of The Twelve Days of Christmas performed with hand gestures?

Hawaii has The Twelve Days of Christmas, Hawaiian Style, with words by three local writers; youngsters typically perform it in concerts, and the group Pure Heart recorded it in 1999.

A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree, published in 1981, reworks The Twelve Days of Christmas for which country?

New Zealand's Māori-flavoured version was written by Kingi Matutaera Ihaka and came out with its own cassette recording.

Which singer closed a 1968 family album with The Twelve Days of Christmas, rewritten as his kids' gifts to him?

Frank Sinatra shared The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas with Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina, who sing the new verses before their father takes the final one alone.

Which glam metal band remade The Twelve Days of Christmas as Heavy Metal Christmas to close its 2006 festive album?

Twisted Sister swapped every gift for heavy-metal gear on the band's seventh studio album, an all-Christmas record, and the track name-checks Ozzy Osbourne.

Which British stage tradition, with its man-played Dame, echoes old customs of the twelve days of Christmas?

Pantomime mocks authority and swaps the sexes, with a woman as the male lead and a man as the Dame, just as the medieval season turned the social order upside down.

In Tudor England, the man chosen to lead the festivities of the twelve days of Christmas was the Lord of what?

Misrule was the point: the Lord of Misrule, often a peasant or junior cleric picked by lot, presided over drunken parties, and Scotland called him the Abbot of Unreason.

Tradition names the three Magi honoured at Epiphany, after the twelve days of Christmas, as Caspar, Melchior and who?

Balthazar completes the trio, though the Bible never names the visitors or describes them as rulers; readers had promoted them to kings by about AD 500.

Which evangelist is the only one to describe the visit of the Magi that Western churches celebrate at Epiphany?

Saint Matthew alone tells the story and never counts the visitors: the West assumes three, one for each gift, while Syriac tradition often makes it twelve.

Which traditional English day, soon after Epiphany, marked the return to work after the twelve days of Christmas?

Plough Monday opened the English agricultural year. Plough gangs hauled a plough from door to door, and householders who refused to donate risked a furrow cut across their front path.

Some writers argue the fifth-day gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas is not jewellery but which ring-necked birds?

Pheasants would mean an unbroken run of birds before the people arrive, a neat pattern, but the oldest known picture of the fifth gift plainly shows jewellery.

Which artist drew John Julius Norwich's 1998 spoof of The Twelve Days of Christmas, subtitled Correspondence?

Quentin Blake supplied the drawings for Norwich's spoof, one of several comic retellings in which the avalanche of birds and performers wears out the recipient's patience.

Which computer scientist analysed The Twelve Days of Christmas in his 1977 joke paper The Complexity of Songs?

Donald Knuth wrote it as an in-joke about complexity theory, treating a carol that keeps repeating its earlier lines as a clever way to pack a long song into little space.

Which song-parody comedian put The Twelve Gifts of Christmas on Billboard's Christmas chart in December 1963?

Allan Sherman wrote and performed his version for a 1963 TV special taped well ahead of the holiday, and Warner Bros. hurried out a single in early December.

Which radio DJ turned The Twelve Days of Christmas into The Twelve Pains of Christmas, a list of holiday hassles?

Bob Rivers put it on Twisted Christmas, the first of his five Christmas comedy albums; its hassles include putting up decorations and shopping for presents.

Unlike most popular songs, the standard tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas has which unusual musical feature?

A shifting metre does it: bars of three beats for most of the gifts are sandwiched between bars of four, so the time signature keeps changing mid-verse.

Which German city's cathedral holds the gilded Shrine of the Three Kings, said to contain the relics of the Magi?

Cologne received the relics in 1164, when Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took them from Milan, and the triple sarcophagus built for them is among the largest reliquaries in the West.

At Epiphany, after the twelve days of Christmas, what do many Christians use to mark C, M and B over the door?

Chalk is the tool; the letters match the Magi's traditional initials and also abbreviate a Latin prayer for the household, Christus mansionem benedicat.

Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, named for the last of the twelve days of Christmas, has which alternative title?

What You Will is the play's subtitle, and its plot suits the festival's topsy-turvy mood: a woman dresses as a man and a steward dreams of becoming a nobleman.

Which Roman festival, with its mock king, do some folklorists see behind customs of the twelve days of Christmas?

Saturnalia ran from 17 to 23 December, with a man chosen to play king in the guise of the god Saturn; James Frazer drew the link, though other scholars reject it.

Which North Atlantic islands put their own fifteen-gift counterpart of The Twelve Days of Christmas on stamps in 1994?

The Faroes count from one feather up to fifteen deer, by way of sheep, cows and barrels, and local cartoonist Óli Petersen drew the whole list for a two-stamp set.

Mathematicians class the grand total of gifts in The Twelve Days of Christmas as which kind of figurate number?

Tetrahedral numbers are stacks of triangular ones: each day's delivery is a triangular number, and piling up all twelve days makes a pyramid with a triangular base.

Which English folk song, like The Twelve Days of Christmas, counts up to twelve, ending with the Apostles?

Green Grow the Rushes, O gives its numbers religious meanings, from the Apostles down to the commandments, and has also been known as The Dilly Song.

In Greek folklore, which tree-sawing goblins surface only during the twelve days of Christmas?

Kallikantzaroi spend the year underground sawing at the tree that holds up the earth; when they return at Epiphany it has healed, and they must start all over again.

At which London theatre has the company shared a Twelfth Night cake since 1795, paid for by an actor's bequest?

Drury Lane still cuts the Baddeley Cake: actor Robert Baddeley left money so the company could share cake and wine in the green room every Twelfth Night.

Which spinning tool names the unofficial 7 January holiday, when work resumed after the twelve days of Christmas?

The distaff was the medieval symbol of women's work, and St Distaff's Day was also known as Rock Day, since 'rock' is another name for the tool.

In German and several other languages, New Year's Eve is named after which pope, whose feast falls that day?

Sylvester I was pope from 314 to 335 and was buried on 31 December, so the last night of the year, midway through the twelve days, is Silvester to millions of Europeans.

In which Florida city do teenage boys dive for a wooden cross thrown into a bayou each Greek Orthodox Epiphany?

Tarpon Springs, home to Greek sponge divers recruited from 1905, holds the ceremony at Spring Bayou, and whoever surfaces with the cross is said to be favoured for a whole year.

Timkat, celebrated with a famous ceremony at Fasilides' Bath in Gondar, is the Epiphany festival of which country?

Ethiopia's Orthodox Church marks it on 19 January, when priests carry each church's tabot, a model of the Ark of the Covenant wrapped in rich cloth, on their heads in procession.

Which James Joyce story, the last in Dubliners, unfolds at a dance held on Twelfth Night?

The Dead opens at the Morkan aunts' annual dance and runs into the small hours of Epiphany, when Gabriel Conroy has a sudden insight of his own while watching the snow.