97 Fun Facts About 12 Days of Christmas

Where were the words of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' first published, around 1780?

An illustrated children's book, Mirth Without Mischief, printed the words in London around 1780 with woodcuts but no music; the tune sung today was not published until 1909.

Early sources say 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' began as what kind of parlour entertainment?

Early accounts describe a memory-and-forfeits game: each player repeated the growing list and paid a forfeit for a slip, which is why the gifts keep piling up.

Holy Innocents' Day, the fourth day of Christmas, recalls the children of Bethlehem killed on which king's orders?

Herod, in Matthew's Gospel, ordered the killing in a rage after the Magi failed to report back to him, hoping to destroy the child they had come to honour; the feast is also called Childermas.

Which part of the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' tune is credited to its 1909 arranger?

The 'five gold rings' phrase is credited to the 1909 arranger by carol books since 1961; his own score claimed no such thing, printing the tune as 'Traditional' with only the arrangement under his name.

A popular but unsupported story says 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' was a secret catechism for which persecuted faith?

Catholicism: the tale has each gift hiding a doctrine for England's outlawed Catholics, but Snopes found no documentation for it, and almost every belief on the list was shared by Anglicans anyway.

Folklorists Peter and Iona Opie thought 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' might be French because which bird reached England only about 1770?

Red-legged partridge: unlike England's native grey partridge it often perches in trees, and it was only established there about 1770, with stock from France, so the pear tree pointed across the Channel.

Which Pittsburgh-based bank has priced the gifts of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' in a tongue-in-cheek index since 1984?

PNC inherited the Christmas Price Index from a predecessor bank, whose chief economist devised it in 1984 as a joke on commodity price indexes; it has priced all twelve gifts every year since.

If you buy every gift on every day of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', how many items do you end up with?

Each gift repeats on every later day (12 partridges, 22 turtle doves, and so on), summing to 364 items, one short of a year's worth.

Roughly what was the 2024 True Cost of Christmas, every gift on every day?

$200,000 is the round figure: the 2024 True Cost of Christmas, which buys each gift again every time the song repeats it, came to $209,272, more than four times the $49,263 for one set of the twelve gifts.

In the standard version of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', which gift arrives on the ninth day?

Ladies dancing come ninth in the standard 1909 arrangement, ahead of the lords, pipers and drummers; the first printing of 1780 had the same four gifts in another order, with the drummers ninth.

Which council, held in 567 in what is now France, proclaimed the days from Christmas to Epiphany a sacred season?

The Council of Tours declared the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany a sacred and festive season and, in the same breath, imposed a fast during Advent to prepare for them.

If Christmas greenery stayed up past Twelfth Night, old English custom said it must come down by which later feast?

Candlemas, on 2 February, was the last call: Robert Herrick's 17th-century verses for its eve order 'Down with the rosemary and bays, down with the mistletoe', and leaving greenery up any longer was thought unlucky.

Which Dickens novella features a roast goose and plum pudding at the Cratchits' table?

A Christmas Carol gives the Cratchits a small goose and a pudding blazing in brandy; the reformed Scrooge then secretly sends them a prize turkey 'twice the size of Tiny Tim'.

Western tradition names the Three Kings of Epiphany as Caspar, Melchior and who?

Balthasar completes the trio, but the names are late tradition: Matthew's Gospel names no Magi and never says how many came, so the count of three was inferred from the three gifts.

What do Eastern Christians principally commemorate at Epiphany?

The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan is the Eastern feast's subject; Western churches kept the day for the Magi and now mark the baptism on a feast of its own, usually the following Sunday.

Which ritual do Orthodox churches perform at Theophany?

The Great Blessing of Waters has priests bless rivers, lakes and the sea; in Greek and Bulgarian parishes a cross is thrown into the water and swimmers race to bring it back.

What do children in Spain and Latin America leave out for the Magi to fill on the eve of Epiphany?

Their shoes: children set them out on the night before Epiphany, in many places with grass and water for the camels, because the Three Kings rather than Santa bring the presents.

What is wassail, as a drink?

A hot mulled punch of ale, cider or wine with spices and roasted apples, wassail was carried from house to house in a bowl by singers who traded a drink for gifts.

What does the Old Norse phrase behind the word 'wassail' mean?

Be in good health is the sense of Old Norse ves heill, which reached English as a plain greeting; only later did 'wassail' become a drinking formula and then the name of the drink itself.

What is the purpose of orchard wassailing?

Wassailers sing and bang pots in the orchard to wake the cider apple trees and scare off evil spirits, hoping to secure a good autumn crop.

What do the three traditional colours of a Louisiana king cake stand for?

Justice, faith and power are the meanings the Rex parade gave purple, green and gold in 1892, twenty years after it first proclaimed them the colours of Mardi Gras; bakers scatter all three on the cake as sugar.

Which French pastry, filled with frangipane and hiding a small charm, is eaten at Epiphany?

The galette des rois is sold with a paper crown for whoever finds the charm in their slice; the south of France prefers a ring of brioche topped with candied fruit, the gâteau des rois.

Which holiday falls on the day after Christmas Day?

Boxing Day, 26 December, is a public holiday in the UK and much of the Commonwealth; the name is first recorded in the 1830s.

Dictionaries trace the name 'Boxing Day' to which old custom?

Christmas boxes collected by tradesmen were tips of money for a year's good service; Samuel Pepys's diary for December 1663 has him dropping something into his shoemaker's boys' box 'against Christmas'.

Whose feast day falls on 26 December in the Western church calendar?

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, is honoured on 26 December, so the carol in which Good King Wenceslas looks out 'on the feast of Stephen' and carries alms through the snow is set the day after Christmas.

What sporting tradition marks 26 December in Britain?

A full programme of league football fills 26 December; fixtures were originally arranged between local rivals so that teams and their fans would not have to travel far the day after Christmas.

Which two dates are both claimed as the twelfth night?

Counting from Christmas Day gives Twelfth Night on 5 January; counting from 26 December gives 6 January, so both dates are defended vigorously.

In the old Twelfth Night custom, whoever found which item baked into the cake was crowned king for the night?

A dried bean made its finder king for the night, while a pea in another slice chose the queen; the custom survives in the trinket hidden in today's king cakes.

Where and when was Shakespeare's holiday-titled comedy first known to be performed?

Law student John Manningham's diary records Twelfth Night at Middle Temple Hall on Candlemas night, 2 February 1602; the play takes its title from the festivity, not its plot.

Which gift-bringer visits Italian children on the night before Epiphany?

La Befana, the legend goes, was too busy with her housework to join the Magi on their way to the infant Jesus, and has gone from house to house with gifts ever since, still looking for him.

What title did England give the mock official put in charge of Christmas merrymaking, known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason?

Lord of Misrule was the title: the king's household and every great nobleman's kept one as master of the season's pastimes, and London's mayor and sheriffs each had their own.

In medieval England, what filled the whole twelve-day period?

Continuous feasting and revels ran through to Twelfth Night; the English farming year traditionally started again only on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany.

Which word did the 1909 arrangement of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' add to the start of every verse?

On: 'On the first day of Christmas' became the standard opening, where printings from 1780 onward had begun simply 'The first day of Christmas'.

The feast of Epiphany takes its name from a Greek word meaning what?

Manifestation, or appearance, is the sense of Greek epiphaneia: the feast marks Jesus being shown to the wider world, which is why English also calls a sudden flash of insight an epiphany.

In 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', which birds arrive 'a-swimming' on the seventh day?

Swans, seven of them, come the day after the six geese a-laying; in Britain the Crown can still claim any unmarked mute swan on open water, so the gift would need royal goodwill.

In Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night', which pompous steward is tricked into wearing yellow cross-gartered stockings?

Malvolio falls for a forged love letter that seems to come from his mistress Olivia and tells him to smile and wear the stockings, a colour she abhors and a fashion she detests.

In New Orleans, during which weeks is king cake traditionally eaten?

From Epiphany to Carnival: New Orleans opens the season at Epiphany and closes it on Mardi Gras, the last day before Lent, which is why bakeries there sell the cake for weeks on end.

Which singer-songwriter sang 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' with the Muppets in the 1979 TV special A Christmas Together?

John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together aired on ABC in December 1979 and produced a soundtrack album, yet the special itself has never been released on a standard home-video format.

In 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', what are the eight maids doing?

Milking: the yearly price index of the song's gifts costs the eight maids at the US minimum wage, which stood still from 2009 to 2025, so they were its cheapest gift at just $58.

Which crooner recorded 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' with the Andrews Sisters in 1949?

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, his regular partners of the 1940s, cut it for Decca in May 1949; seventy years on, the label dubbed the London Symphony Orchestra onto their vocals for the album Bing at Christmas.

Old broadsides point to the area around which northern English city as the likely birthplace of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'?

Newcastle upon Tyne: William Henry Husk wrote in 1864 that broadsides of the carol had been printed there for 150 years, which would take it back to about 1714, long before the London book of 1780.

In the original 'four colly birds', what does the dialect word 'colly' mean?

Colly means coal-black, so the fourth-day gift was blackbirds; the 1909 arrangement swapped the puzzling word for 'calling', which is what most people sing.

Some scholars think the 'pear tree' of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is a corruption of which French word?

Perdrix, said roughly 'pair-dree', is French for partridge, so on this theory 'a partridge in a pear tree' simply names the same bird twice, the second time in misheard French.

Which of the Magi's three gifts, marked at Epiphany, was a bitter resin used to anoint and embalm the dead?

Myrrh was the gift that looked ahead to death: since Origen it has been read as a sign that the child was mortal, beside gold for a king and frankincense for a god.

What replaces the partridge in Bob and Doug McKenzie's 'Twelve Days of Christmas'?

Beer, 'in a tree', is the first gift, with back bacon fourth and golden toques fifth; the brothers list only eight gifts, and Bob then scolds Doug for leaving out the donuts.

'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is a classic example of which type of song?

Cumulative song: each verse repeats every earlier gift and adds one more, so the first day's gift is sung twelve times and the twelve drummers only once.

In New Orleans, what is traditionally hidden inside a king cake for one guest to find?

A tiny plastic baby, often said to stand for the infant Jesus, makes its finder king for the day, and the price of the crown is buying the next cake or hosting the next party.

The Christmas Price Index prices the lords of The Twelve Days of Christmas using pay rates from which art form?

Ballet salaries stand in for the lords because the United States recognises no titles of nobility, so the index hires male dancers from a Philadelphia company instead.

How is 28 December, Holy Innocents' Day in the twelve days of Christmas, marked in Spain and Latin America?

With practical jokes: the day works like April Fools' Day there, and the pranks even have their own name, inocentadas.

The 'turtle' in the turtle doves of The Twelve Days of Christmas is unrelated to the reptile; what is it named after?

Its cooing call is where the name comes from: Latin turtur simply imitates the sound. The doves' devotion to their mates also made 'turtle' a medieval term of endearment.

Which Irish nickname for Epiphany, the feast that follows Twelfth Night, recalls a swap of household roles?

Women's Christmas, or Nollaig na mBan, was the day men took on the household chores so that the women who had cooked all season could rest or go out together.

Which a cappella group won a record deal after its 1998 college performance of The Twelve Days of Christmas went viral?

Straight No Chaser formed at Indiana University in 1996; the clip sat unseen until a founder posted it in 2006, and Atlantic Records signed the reunited singers in 2008.

Which future US president married a wealthy widow in 1759 on Epiphany, the day after the twelve days of Christmas?

George Washington wed Martha Dandridge Custis, a 27-year-old widow with a large estate, and the couple settled at his Mount Vernon plantation.

Which US sitcom has salesman Andy send a co-worker the gifts of The Twelve Days of Christmas as her Secret Santa?

The Office has the live birds go badly wrong for receptionist Erin, who is furious with Andy; a dozen drummers in the parking lot later complete the gift.

Old folklore read the weather on the twelve days of Christmas, day by day, as a forecast for what?

Each month of the year had its matching day. Some families echo the idea today, giving a gift on each of the twelve as a wish for the corresponding month.

Which R&B group cut The Twelve Days of Christmas to 8 Days of Christmas for its 2001 holiday album's title track?

Destiny's Child re-sang the old carol's lyrics over a modern beat for 8 Days of Christmas, the trio's only Christmas album, part of which was recorded on a promotional trip to Japan.

Which tiny bird, once hunted and paraded on 26 December, names an Irish custom of the twelve days of Christmas?

The wren was revered as the king of the birds. Costumed Wrenboys in straw masks still parade a stuffed or fake one from house to house, playing music for donations.

In The Twelve Days of Christmas, who is said to send the singer every one of the gifts, day after day?

A true love sends the lot, and because each gift is repeated on every later day, the deliveries snowball from a single bird to dozens of arrivals at once.

Which farmyard birds arrive on the sixth day of The Twelve Days of Christmas, each one busy laying?

Geese a-laying are the sixth gift, and since they are sent again on each of the six days that follow, the singer ends up with forty-two of them.

Which musicians are the eleventh-day gift in the standard 1909 order of The Twelve Days of Christmas?

Pipers take the eleventh day in the familiar order, but versions disagree about the final four gifts, and some singers put the pipers as early as the ninth.

Which musical term covers both The Twelve Days of Christmas and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?

A cumulative song adds one new line per verse and then repeats every earlier one, so the carol's twelfth verse is twelve gifts long while its opening verse has only one.

Early printings of The Twelve Days of Christmas say each gift was 'sent'; which verb do North Americans usually sing?

Gave is a 20th-century variant that became especially common in North America; the early printings, from the 1780s on, all have the older wording.

Which comedian took the parody Redneck 12 Days of Christmas to number 18 on Billboard's country chart in 1996?

Jeff Foxworthy co-wrote it with Tim Wilson, and it kept coming back: the single re-entered the country chart every January for the next four years.

Childermas, on 28 December within the twelve days of Christmas, recalls infants killed on the orders of which ruler?

Herod the Great, king of Judea, is said to have ordered the deaths of Bethlehem's boys aged two and under; the church remembers them as the first Christian martyrs.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury, killed in his cathedral in 1170, has his feast on 29 December, within the twelve days?

Thomas Becket was cut down by four knights loyal to Henry II after years of quarrelling with the king over the Church's rights, and his feast is kept on the day he died.

Which older calendar, 13 days behind the Gregorian, puts Christmas on 7 January for Russia's Orthodox Church?

Julian dates still govern the feasts of churches such as Russia's, Serbia's and Georgia's, so their 25 December lands on the Gregorian 7 January and Epiphany follows on the 19th.

What do some households kindle on Christmas Eve, then burn a little more of on each of the twelve nights of Christmas?

A Yule log is the choice: in the English custom a portion was burned each evening until Twelfth Night, and the earliest record of a special Christmas log dates from 1184.

The Christmas Price Index treats the milkmaids of The Twelve Days of Christmas as unskilled workers paid at which rate?

Federal minimum wage sets the milkmaids' price, which critics say is too cheap: the index hires the workers but never budgets for a single cow for them to milk.

Which US state lends its name to a 'Style' rewrite of The Twelve Days of Christmas performed with hand gestures?

Hawaii has The Twelve Days of Christmas, Hawaiian Style, with words by three local writers; youngsters typically perform it in concerts, and the group Pure Heart recorded it in 1999.

A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree, published in 1981, reworks The Twelve Days of Christmas for which country?

New Zealand's Māori-flavoured version was written by Kingi Matutaera Ihaka and came out with its own cassette recording.

Which singer closed a 1968 family album with The Twelve Days of Christmas, rewritten as his kids' gifts to him?

Frank Sinatra shared The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas with Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina, who sing the new verses before their father takes the final one alone.

Which glam metal band remade The Twelve Days of Christmas as Heavy Metal Christmas to close its 2006 festive album?

Twisted Sister swapped every gift for heavy-metal gear on the band's seventh studio album, an all-Christmas record, and the track name-checks Ozzy Osbourne.

Which British stage tradition, with its man-played Dame, echoes old customs of the twelve days of Christmas?

Pantomime mocks authority and swaps the sexes, with a woman as the male lead and a man as the Dame, just as the medieval season turned the social order upside down.

In Tudor England, the man chosen to lead the festivities of the twelve days of Christmas was the Lord of what?

Misrule was the point: the Lord of Misrule, often a peasant or junior cleric picked by lot, presided over drunken parties, and Scotland called him the Abbot of Unreason.

Tradition names the three Magi honoured at Epiphany, after the twelve days of Christmas, as Caspar, Melchior and who?

Balthazar completes the trio, though the Bible never names the visitors or describes them as rulers; readers had promoted them to kings by about AD 500.

Which evangelist is the only one to describe the visit of the Magi that Western churches celebrate at Epiphany?

Saint Matthew alone tells the story and never counts the visitors: the West assumes three, one for each gift, while Syriac tradition often makes it twelve.

Which traditional English day, soon after Epiphany, marked the return to work after the twelve days of Christmas?

Plough Monday opened the English agricultural year. Plough gangs hauled a plough from door to door, and householders who refused to donate risked a furrow cut across their front path.

Some writers argue the fifth-day gift in The Twelve Days of Christmas is not jewellery but which ring-necked birds?

Pheasants would mean an unbroken run of birds before the people arrive, a neat pattern, but the oldest known picture of the fifth gift plainly shows jewellery.

Which artist drew John Julius Norwich's 1998 spoof of The Twelve Days of Christmas, subtitled Correspondence?

Quentin Blake supplied the drawings for Norwich's spoof, one of several comic retellings in which the avalanche of birds and performers wears out the recipient's patience.

Which computer scientist analysed The Twelve Days of Christmas in his 1977 joke paper The Complexity of Songs?

Donald Knuth wrote it as an in-joke about complexity theory, treating a carol that keeps repeating its earlier lines as a clever way to pack a long song into little space.

Which song-parody comedian put The Twelve Gifts of Christmas on Billboard's Christmas chart in December 1963?

Allan Sherman wrote and performed his version for a 1963 TV special taped well ahead of the holiday, and Warner Bros. hurried out a single in early December.

Which radio DJ turned The Twelve Days of Christmas into The Twelve Pains of Christmas, a list of holiday hassles?

Bob Rivers put it on Twisted Christmas, the first of his five Christmas comedy albums; its hassles include putting up decorations and shopping for presents.

Unlike most popular songs, the standard tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas has which unusual musical feature?

A shifting metre does it: bars of three beats for most of the gifts are sandwiched between bars of four, so the time signature keeps changing mid-verse.

Which German city's cathedral holds the gilded Shrine of the Three Kings, said to contain the relics of the Magi?

Cologne received the relics in 1164, when Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took them from Milan, and the triple sarcophagus built for them is among the largest reliquaries in the West.

At Epiphany, after the twelve days of Christmas, what do many Christians use to mark C, M and B over the door?

Chalk is the tool; the letters match the Magi's traditional initials and also abbreviate a Latin prayer for the household, Christus mansionem benedicat.

Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, named for the last of the twelve days of Christmas, has which alternative title?

What You Will is the play's subtitle, and its plot suits the festival's topsy-turvy mood: a woman dresses as a man and a steward dreams of becoming a nobleman.

Which Roman festival, with its mock king, do some folklorists see behind customs of the twelve days of Christmas?

Saturnalia ran from 17 to 23 December, with a man chosen to play king in the guise of the god Saturn; James Frazer drew the link, though other scholars reject it.

Which North Atlantic islands put their own fifteen-gift counterpart of The Twelve Days of Christmas on stamps in 1994?

The Faroes count from one feather up to fifteen deer, by way of sheep, cows and barrels, and local cartoonist Óli Petersen drew the whole list for a two-stamp set.

Mathematicians class the grand total of gifts in The Twelve Days of Christmas as which kind of figurate number?

Tetrahedral numbers are stacks of triangular ones: each day's delivery is a triangular number, and piling up all twelve days makes a pyramid with a triangular base.

Which English folk song, like The Twelve Days of Christmas, counts up to twelve, ending with the Apostles?

Green Grow the Rushes, O gives its numbers religious meanings, from the Apostles down to the commandments, and has also been known as The Dilly Song.

In Greek folklore, which tree-sawing goblins surface only during the twelve days of Christmas?

Kallikantzaroi spend the year underground sawing at the tree that holds up the earth; when they return at Epiphany it has healed, and they must start all over again.

At which London theatre has the company shared a Twelfth Night cake since 1795, paid for by an actor's bequest?

Drury Lane still cuts the Baddeley Cake: actor Robert Baddeley left money so the company could share cake and wine in the green room every Twelfth Night.

Which spinning tool names the unofficial 7 January holiday, when work resumed after the twelve days of Christmas?

The distaff was the medieval symbol of women's work, and St Distaff's Day was also known as Rock Day, since 'rock' is another name for the tool.

In German and several other languages, New Year's Eve is named after which pope, whose feast falls that day?

Sylvester I was pope from 314 to 335 and was buried on 31 December, so the last night of the year, midway through the twelve days, is Silvester to millions of Europeans.

In which Florida city do teenage boys dive for a wooden cross thrown into a bayou each Greek Orthodox Epiphany?

Tarpon Springs, home to Greek sponge divers recruited from 1905, holds the ceremony at Spring Bayou, and whoever surfaces with the cross is said to be favoured for a whole year.

Timkat, celebrated with a famous ceremony at Fasilides' Bath in Gondar, is the Epiphany festival of which country?

Ethiopia's Orthodox Church marks it on 19 January, when priests carry each church's tabot, a model of the Ark of the Covenant wrapped in rich cloth, on their heads in procession.

Which James Joyce story, the last in Dubliners, unfolds at a dance held on Twelfth Night?

The Dead opens at the Morkan aunts' annual dance and runs into the small hours of Epiphany, when Gabriel Conroy has a sudden insight of his own while watching the snow.