The Twelve Days

The Twelve Days of Christmas run from Christmas Day through January 5. Epiphany follows on January 6. The song began as a memory game, not a secret code.

Pick a day, then press Your turn.

Your turn: the music box plays the start of the verse, then waits. Tap each gift as the song counts down. It plays its line, and the song grows. If you tap the wrong one, nothing is lost.

Day 1 of 12, December 25

Christmas Day

The new gift is a partridge in a pear tree. That day: 1 gift.

The oldest record that puts Christmas on December 25 is a Roman church calendar from the year 336, copied into a book in 354. The Twelve Days count from that day.

Source: Wikipedia: Christmas (the Chronograph of 354)

¹⁰The angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people.
¹¹For there is born to you today, in David’s city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Luke 2:10-11

Day 2 of 12, December 26

St Stephen and Boxing Day

The new gift is two turtle doves. That day: 3 gifts.

Stephen is remembered as the first Christian martyr, someone who died for their faith. In Britain this day became Boxing Day, when tradespeople came for their Christmas boxes of money and gifts, a custom Samuel Pepys wrote about in 1663.

Source: Wikipedia: Boxing Day; Wikipedia: Saint Stephen’s Day

⁸Stephen, full of faith and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Acts 6:8

Day 3 of 12, December 27

St John, Apostle and Evangelist

The new gift is three French hens. That day: 6 gifts.

John, one of the twelve apostles, is remembered on December 27 by Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches. Artists often paint him with an eagle and a book, and the book stands for the Gospel that tradition says he wrote.

Source: Wikipedia: John the Apostle

¹⁴The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

Day 4 of 12, December 28

The Holy Innocents

The new gift is four calling birds. That day: 10 gifts.

The church remembers the children of Bethlehem who died when King Herod feared a newborn king (Matthew 2:16-18). In the Middle Ages the day, called Childermas, turned the church upside down for a day, and a boy bishop could lead part of the service.

Source: Wikipedia: Feast of the Holy Innocents

¹³Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.”
Matthew 2:13

Day 5 of 12, December 29

Thomas Becket

The new gift is five gold rings. That day: 15 gifts.

Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was killed in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170, after a long quarrel with King Henry II. He was named a saint two years later.

Source: Wikipedia: Thomas Becket

¹⁰Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Matthew 5:10

Day 6 of 12, December 30

The Holy Family

The new gift is six geese a-laying. That day: 21 gifts.

The Holy Family means Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Since 1969 the Roman Catholic Church keeps its feast on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s Day, or on December 30 when no Sunday falls between them.

Source: Wikipedia: Feast of the Holy Family

⁵¹And he went down with them and came to Nazareth. He was subject to them, and his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Luke 2:51-52

Day 7 of 12, December 31

Watch Night

The new gift is seven swans a-swimming. That day: 28 gifts.

Many churches hold a watchnight service late on December 31 to pray over the year that is ending and the year ahead. The Moravian Church held them from 1733, and John Wesley, who began the Methodist movement, wrote about one he attended in 1738.

Source: Wikipedia: Watchnight service

⁷The LORD will keep you from all evil. He will keep your soul.
⁸The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more.
Psalm 121:7-8

Day 8 of 12, January 1

The Name of Jesus, and New Year’s Day

The new gift is eight maids a-milking. That day: 36 gifts.

Luke says that on the eighth day the child was named Jesus, so many churches keep January 1 as the Feast of the Name of Jesus. In Greece it is also Saint Basil’s Day, and families cut a Vasilopita, a bread baked with a coin hidden inside.

Source: Wikipedia: Feast of the Circumcision of Christ; Wikipedia: Vasilopita

²¹When eight days were fulfilled for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Luke 2:21

Day 9 of 12, January 2

St Basil and St Gregory

The new gift is nine ladies dancing. That day: 45 gifts.

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus met as students in Athens and became close friends, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches remember them together on January 2. Basil gave away his wealth to people in need, and in Greece children still get their gifts on his feast, January 1.

Source: Wikipedia: Basil of Caesarea; Wikipedia: Gregory of Nazianzus

¹⁷A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17

Day 10 of 12, January 3

St Genevieve

The new gift is ten lords a-leaping. That day: 55 gifts.

Genevieve lived about 1,500 years ago in what is now France and is one of the patron saints of Paris. Her feast day is January 3, and pictures often show her holding a candle.

Source: Wikipedia: Genevieve

¹²Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12

Day 11 of 12, January 4

Elizabeth Ann Seton

The new gift is eleven pipers piping. That day: 66 gifts.

Elizabeth Ann Seton, born in New York in 1774, opened a free Catholic school for girls in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1810. She died on January 4, 1821, and in 1975 she became the first person born in the United States to be named a saint by the Catholic Church.

Source: Wikipedia: Elizabeth Ann Seton; Catholic Review: Back where it all began

¹⁴But Jesus said, “Allow the little children, and don’t forbid them to come to me; for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to ones like these.”
Matthew 19:14

A crowded table at a feast, a bearded man in a paper crown lifting a glass while the others cheer.

Day 12 of 12, January 5

Twelfth Night

The new gift is twelve drummers drumming. That day: 78 gifts.

On Twelfth Night, the last night of the Twelve Days, English families baked a cake with a bean hidden in it, and whoever found the bean was king for the night. Jacob Jordaens painted a Bean King party around 1638, and the Drury Lane theater in London has served a Twelfth Night cake to its company since 1795.

Source: Wikipedia: Twelfth Night (holiday)

¹“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the LORD’s glory has risen on you!
²For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise on you, and his glory shall be seen on you.
³Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
Isaiah 60:1-3

Jacob Jordaens, The Bean King, 1638. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Public domain.

A snowy Flemish village at dusk. People crowd in front of a ruined shed where a mother sits with her child while richly dressed visitors kneel.

The day after the twelfth, January 6

Epiphany

Epiphany remembers the wise men who came to worship the child. Many Christians chalk a blessing over their door in a pattern like 20+C+M+B+27, letters that can mean “Christ bless this house.”

Source: Wikipedia: Epiphany (holiday); Wikipedia: Chalking the door

¹Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying,
²“Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.”
Read all of Matthew 2:1-12
³When King Herod heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
⁴Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he asked them where the Christ would be born.
⁵They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is written through the prophet,
⁶‘You Bethlehem, land of Judah, are in no way least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come a governor who shall shepherd my people, Israel.’”
⁷Then Herod secretly called the wise men, and learned from them exactly what time the star appeared.
⁸He sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child. When you have found him, bring me word, so that I also may come and worship him.”
⁹They, having heard the king, went their way; and behold, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them until it came and stood over where the young child was.
¹⁰When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
¹¹They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
¹²Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country another way.
Matthew 2:1-12

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Adoration of the Kings in the Snow, 1563. Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur. Public domain.

About the song and the twelve days

The words were first printed in a children’s book called Mirth Without Mischief, published in London around 1780. It had four “colly birds” where we sing four calling birds, and colly is an old word for coal-black, so they were blackbirds.
Source: Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)
It began as a memory game. A leader said a verse, every player said it back, and the leader added the next day; “each child in succession repeats the gifts of the day, and forfeits for each mistake,” James Halliwell wrote in 1842. Playing it from memory here is the old game.
Source: Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song), origins
The tune most people know comes from a 1909 setting by the English composer Frederic Austin, who wrote that he had heard the song in his own family as a child. He also changed colly birds to calling birds and put the ninth to twelfth gifts in today’s order.
Source: Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song), music
Count every gift in every verse and the true love sends 364 in all. Each day adds one more of the newest gift: 1, then 3, then 6, up to 78 on the twelfth day.
Source: Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song), gifts
You may hear that the song was a secret code for the faith. The first person to say so offered no evidence, and the song’s earliest forms are a children’s game.
Source: Wikipedia: The Twelve Days of Christmas (song), meaning

Counting the gifts

Each day's new gift, and the number of gifts sent on that day.
Day	New gift	Gifts that day
1	a partridge in a pear tree	1
2	two turtle doves	3
3	three French hens	6
4	four calling birds	10
5	five gold rings	15
6	six geese a-laying	21
7	seven swans a-swimming	28
8	eight maids a-milking	36
9	nine ladies dancing	45
10	ten lords a-leaping	55
11	eleven pipers piping	66
12	twelve drummers drumming	78
All twelve verses		364

After the twelve days

Long ago in England the season ran on past Epiphany to Candlemas on February 2, and Twelfth Night came to mark the end only later. Source: Wikipedia: Twelfth Night (holiday)

²⁹“Now you are releasing your servant, Master, according to your word, in peace; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹which you have prepared before the face of all peoples; ³²a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”
Luke 2:29-32

Pictures and the tune are credited on the credits page.