If you haven’t heard the popular Christmas Carol known simply as the twelve days of Christmas, then I honestly don’t know where you have been all of your life, this song is blasted in every shopping mall from end November and especially during Advent. There are storybooks concerning the Twelve Days of Christmas and it even gets talked about on those talk shows with moms who you can’t help but wonder how they made it to television and why on earth you’re watching the show. But since, we at Sir Holiday love exploring the stories behind the stories we figured what better to dissect than one of our most beloved Christmas carols.

And now onto the examination of the Twelve Days of Christmas, let’s first go over the song lyrics, the song follows a person who receives a gift every day from their true love in the twelve daysof advent leading up to Christmas. As the days go by the gifts get more and more lavish, beginning with a partridge in a pear tree, moving on to things like seven swans a-swimming and 10 lords a leaping to finally ending with twelve drummers drumming. Goodness gracious, why couldn’t they have asked something a little easier to wrap, they would be the worst person to be given in Secret Santa.

The first recorded appearance of this carol was in a book known as Mirth With-out Mischief from 1780; however it is believed that even earlier than 1780 singers would entertain villages and townsfolk with these carols attempting to remember the lines perfectly. If they got anything wrong then they would have to give another singer some kind of token in exchange for their opponent besting them. The carol hasn’t always been the same, there have been many different variations of the carol throughout history, and sometimes the person who is sending the gifts is actually the singer’s mother. Even the songs origins have been disputed; there are many who believe the song originates from France; however this has yet to be officially put beyond doubt.

There is a theory that the song actually hides within it secret references to key pieces of Christianity, for example, the second set of gifts which are two turtle doves are thought to symbolize the Old and the New Testament within the Bible. Another example is the six geese a-laying are thought to be a reference to the six days of creation. And if anyone had any doubts the very first gift, a partridge in a pear tree is thought to symbolize Jesus Christ. However, this is more of a theory than anything to be taken seriously, especially as the version of the song we all know and love was set in 1909 by an Austrian Composer.

It is far more likely that this was just a fun song that children and folk alike used to entertain themselves and get ready to be filled with the Christmas spirit during the days of advent.

For all of your holiday information and more visit Sir Holiday now.

Candles for Christmas carols:

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/01/15/16/42/christmas-1142016_960_720.jpg

Girl surrounded by gifts:

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/11/08/18/41/girl-2931287_960_720.jpg