Gifts in the song "Twelve days of Christmas" are highly impractical and probably illegal

[Yavin4]

A partridge in a pear tree,
Two turtle doves,
Three french hens,
Four calling birds,
Five gold rings,
Six geese a-laying
Seven swans a-swimming,
Eight maids a-milking,
Nine ladies dancing,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Eleven pipers piping,
Twelve drummers drumming.


First, there are 23 birds in all. Where are you supposed to house all of this fowl? Next, you have 50 people either milking, dancing, leaping, piping, and drumming. Again, what are you going to do with all of these people.

Your neighbors are going to call the authorities with all of those birds and people running about in your home. Well, at least the five golden rings have some value.

[MarvinGardens]

1. And since when did Christmas have 12 days?

I wondered this as a kid. My Christmas was one day, but long ago, it was 12 days. My first clue was what my grandmother told me, that I should hang my Christmas star until January 6th, "Epiphany". This was the "Christmas season". Looking into it further on the internet, the 12 days of Christmas were 12/25 to 1/5 inclusive. This is a bit different from our modern experience. Now, the Christmas season runs from approximately November 1st and December 25th, but it's a ling slow build up.. After the 25th, it's just after Christmas shopping and New Year's.

[Yavin4]

2. I wonder if Winter Solstice festivals were a reaction to the winter season

Because of the snow and cold, you wouldn't see your neighbors for months, and to help them, you give them gifts right at the start of Winter to help them through it.

[Hekate]

6. Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, which in Northern latitudes is really saying a lot

Up to that point the days have grown exponentially shorter, harvest is in and whatever you've got in storage has to last you for all the long months until the next growing season. It's a cold, dark, and potentially hungry time.

Then just as it seems the Sun will never return, it does. From the Solstice (December 21-22), day little by little conquers night. Through all history, wherever seasons have these big swings (ie, not the tropics), people have celebrated the return of the Sun in many guises. As best they were able, feast days would be held, songs and merriment, a certain amount of licentiousness. Naturally, the early Christian missionaries grafted their own story into the much older pagan stories.

Axial tilt is the reason for the season -- but our own needs make a narrative of it.

[jmowreader]

5. For centuries, actually

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas

The First Day of Christmas is December 25. The 12th Day is January 5.

And if you think about it, some of the days are quite practical. All the birds are edible, and since none of them (save the geese) are going to survive the winter, consider these to be feast days.

[marylandblue]

3. If you can afford all that stuff, plus the marching band and dancers

Then you are wealthy enough to live in a mansion to put them all in.

[Yavin4]

4. But these are gifts

What practical use is it to have 11 dudes leaping around your apartment?

[PJMcK]

7. Sounds like some parties I went to in the 1970s

(wink)

[marylandblue]

10. Why do we give fruitcakes as gifts?

We only give useless stuff to people we don't like. So if your "true love" gives you a troupe of aristocratic acrobats, it's time to end the relationship. Don't even get me started about the pear tree in the middle of winter.

[Hekate]

13. The original fruitcakes were probably tastier. They were designed for winter storage & eating...

Nuts, dried fruits, honey, and a dose of liquor (like brandy) to preserve the cakes even better.

Those modern manufactured glacé fruits glowing with artificial colors look pretty but don't taste all that great. The original recipes probably were tastier -- and a huge treat in midwinter.

[marylandblue]

14. Well if someone gives me a well-preserved 200-year old fruitcake

I'll be sure to give them a heartfelt thank you.

[OnDoutside]

8. I know a song about that.....

[Donkees]

9. ''it is highly probable that it originated from a children's memory and forfeit game.''

The exact origins and the meaning of the song are unknown, but it is highly probable that it originated from a children's memory and forfeit game.

The best known English version was first printed in English in 1780 in a little book intended for children, Mirth without Mischief, as a Twelfth Night "memories-and-forfeits" game, in which a leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet.

This piece is found on broadsides printed at Newcastle at various periods during the last hundred and fifty years. On one of these sheets, nearly a century old, it is entitled "An Old English Carol," but it can scarcely be said to fall within that description of composition, being rather fitted for use in playing the game of "Forfeits," to which purpose it was commonly applied in the metropolis upwards of forty years since. The practice was for one person in the company to recite the first three lines; a second, the four following; and so on; the person who failed in repeating her portion correctly being subjected to some trifling forfeit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(song)

[targetpractice]

11. If you take the song literally...

The set of gifts were given each day... In the end, wouldn't it be...

12 partridges in pear trees.
22 turtle doves.
30 French hens.
36 calling birds.
40 golden rings.
42 geese-a-laying.
42 swans-a-swimming.
40 maids-a-milking.
36 ladies dancing.
30 lords-a-leaping.
22 pipers piping.
12 drummers drumming.

That's a lot of birds.

[skypilot]

12. In addition to all that...

...it seems you'd also have EIGHT COWS on your hands. The "maids-a-milking" have to be milking something.