The Secular 12 Days of Christmas?
By W.S.
I recently ran across a retailer that was celebrating the "12 days before Christmas" to lure people in to "purchase some Christmas cheer". It made me stop and pause to recollect the true
meaning of what the 12 days of Christmas truly are in the Christian sense, not
the secular.
According to Wikipedia, these 12 Days of Christmas are the twelve
evenings, beginning on Christmas Day (Dec. 25th) through the morning of the
Epiphany (Jan. 6th). This is also the time known as Christmastide. So, this is
not a celebration leading up to Christmas Day, rather, it is a celebration AFTER
the birth of Jesus.
In our society, it seems we have lost the focus of what it is that we are
celebrating at Christmas. A lot of us tend to, including myself, focus on all
the sales that are being held around every corner, getting our Christmas baking
done, Christmas concerts, wrapping our gifts, decorating our homes, attending
various parties, and making sure we have the most
lights up outside. All these things can be good because they can bring joy to us and those around us, and what can be wrong with that? But if we forget the real reason, haven't we just celebrated some secular festivity?
Another thing that came to mind was the song we are all familiar with,
"The 12 Days of Christmas". You can sing this and think of a cute poetic song
about birds, or, as some view it, as a song with Catholic meaning to recall the
tenets of our faith. The partridge in a pear tree represents Jesus Christ as the
mother partridge who acts as a decoy against predators to protect her nestlings.
2 Turtle Doves are the Old and New Testaments; 3 French Hens are Faith, Hope and
Charity; 4 Calling Birds are the Four Gospels; 5 Golden Rings are the first Five
Books of the Old Testament; 6 Geese a-Laying are the six days of creation; 7
swans a-swimming are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; 8 maids a-milking are
the eight beatitudes; 9 Ladies Dancing are the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit;
10 Lord a-Leaping are the 10 commandments; 11 Pipers Piping are the eleven
faithful apostles; 12 Drummers Drumming are the twelve points of doctrine in the
Apostle's Creed. Some believe this song was created during the time after the
Anglican Reformation in England
(1558-1829) when Catholics were prohibited from practicing their faith. It was
used as a catechetical tool to instruct.
I truly hope that you enjoy all these festivities surrounding the celebration of Jesus' birth. But also, I hope that you can at least for a moment remember that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if it wasn't for Christ. God bless. And maybe think of keeping your decorations up through the Christmas season.