The (real) 12 Days of Christmas

You may know the song “The 12 Days of Christmas,” but did you know that according to the liturgical calendar, Catholics mark an actual 12 days of Christmas between the Nativity of the Lord on Dec. 25 and ending the day before Epiphany, Jan. 6?

Here are those days.

Dec. 25 – Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

It’s Christmas!

Dec. 26 – Feast of St. Stephen

If you have the lyrics of “Good King Wenceslas” in your head, its first line about the king looking out “on the Feast of Stephen,” this is the Stephen it refers to. He was a deacon in the early church and its first martyr upon being stoned to death.

Dec. 27 – Feast of St. John the Evangelist

St. John the Apostle and Evangelist wrote the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. According to some sources, he’s included in the Christmas season feasts because of his virginity.

Dec. 28 – Feast of the Holy Innocents

This feast marks when King Herod ordered the killing of all boys in Bethlehem under the age of 2 in the hopes of killing the young Messiah.

Dec. 29 – Memorial of St. Thomas Becket

St. Thomas Becket was the archbishop of Canterbury, murdered because he wouldn’t concede to the demands of King Henry II over interference in the church.

Dec. 30 – Feast of The Holy Family

This is the day we honor St. Joseph, the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Pope Benedict XV put the observance on the church calendar in 1921.

Dec. 31 – Memorial of St. Sylvester I

Pope Sylvester was pontiff between 314 to 335, converted Emperor Constantine, and assembled the first Council of Nicaea.

Jan. 1 – Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

This day honors Mary specifically as Jesus’ mother. In 1974, Pope Paul VI replaced the Circumcision of Jesus on the liturgical calendar with this solemnity. In many dioceses, this is a Holy Day of Obligation, though not here in the Diocese of Honolulu. It is also the eighth day of the “Christmas Octave.”

Jan. 2 – Memorial of Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen

Both these saints are “doctors of the church.” St. Basil was the bishop of Caesarea in Asia Minor and St. Gregory the bishop of Constantinople. The two are considered founders of Eastern monasticism and wrote many theological treatises among other things.

Jan. 3 – Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Pope Innocent XIII put this feast on the churchwide liturgical calendar in 1721. Vatican II saw it taken off the calendar, but it was put back as an optional memorial in the 2002 Roman Missal.

Jan. 4 – Memorial of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first U.S.-born saint. She had five children, was widowed and converted from the Episcopal faith. She is also known for starting the Sisters of Charity, opening the first U.S. parish school, and starting the first Catholic orphanage in America.

Jan. 5 – Memorial of St. John Neumann

Jan. 6 is Epiphany, the celebration of the arrival of the Magi or Wisemen at Jesus’ home. In the Catholic liturgical calendar, the Christmas season doesn’t end until the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism, the Sunday after Epiphany.

No, it’s not a secret catechism

And as far as the traditional “The 12 Days of Christmas” song, while some have said each verse was written to teach the Catholic catechism when the religion was being suppressed in Protestant England, this isn’t likely.

“For one thing, it doesn’t fit the bill as a catechism song,” Mental Floss wrote in a 2013 story about the song. “All 12 things it professes to secretly represent — the books of the Bible, the six days of creation, etc. — would have been acceptable to Protestants as well. For another thing, this rumor seems to have popped up in the last 25 years, and then spread like wildfire, as such things do, on the interwebs, without reference to any original sources.”

A 2000 Snopes article also debunked the “secret catechism” idea.

“There is absolutely no documentation or supporting evidence for this claim whatsoever, other than mere repetition of the claim itself,” it said in its article about the rumor. “The claim appears to date only to the 1990s, marking it as likely an invention of modern-day speculation rather than historical fact.”

The song most likely predates its first printed version in the 1780 children’s book “Mirth Without Mischief” and it likely came from France. It’s real meaning is perhaps no deeper than what it seems, a song of celebration about dancing and singing.

But a few misinterpretations are now in the song, according to Snopes. The four “calling” birds was originally “colly” birds, meaning “black as coal” or blackbirds. The “five golden rings” are about the rings around a bird’s neck.

And although “The 12 Days of Christmas” may not have a surreptitious Catholic meaning, some argue the new interpretation of values to verses can still be helpful.

“Just because the song wasn’t written for catechetical lessons doesn’t mean we can’t use it for them now,” wrote Ascension Press author Melissa Keating in 2019. “Personally, I’ve thought of at least some of the symbols every time I’ve heard the song since I first read about the supposed story.”

Plus, she half-jokingly added, “Having a meaning assigned to it makes it a lot easier to sit through at your child’s Christmas concert.”

And it’s a reminder that Christmas doesn’t end on Dec. 25. There’s lots more to celebrate.

And last, but not least

The Hawaii Catholic Herald was lucky enough to employ the services of Catholic comedian Frank De Lima who wrote his version especially for the paper. He says it is based on real experience.

On the first Mass of Christmas my parish gave to me

One crooked angel top da Christmas tree.

Two toddlers running,

Three pews creaking,

Four coughers coughing,

Five-minute sermons (yeah!)

Six husbands nodding,

Seven noses blowing,

Eight ushers talking,

Nine babies crying,

Ten cellphones ringing,

Eleven kneelers banging,

Twelve prayers of da faithful.

Go to frankdelima.com to hear the song. Or play below.