The Twelve Days of Christmas

Origin and history

In the West, Christmas is not just one day but a season, Christmastide. In 567 the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany a sacred, festive season. The Twelve Days include Saint Stephen's Day and New Year's Day, and end with Twelfth Night, the evening of 5 January, before the Feast of the Epiphany.

Customs

• Feasting and visiting; in the United Kingdom, foods connected with the season include plum pudding, roast goose and wassail, as in Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
• Keeping decorations up until Twelfth Night or Epiphany.
• Twelfth Night was a time of merrymaking, sometimes led by a Lord of Misrule; William Shakespeare named one of his comedies after it.

How traditions differ

Some Christians count the twelve days from 26 December to 6 January, so that they include Epiphany. Lutheran and Anglican churches keep Christmastide as a twelve-day season.

In the library

Works: A Christmas Carol

Great Lives: Charles Dickens · William Shakespeare

More in Christmastide

Christmas · St Stephen's Day