The Twelve Days of Christmas

It has long been a tradition in my family to leave our Christmas tree and decorations up until 7 January, which is my birthday. Now we have an added reason to do so: 7 January is also Ethiopian Christmas!

This year I decided to add another “layer” to the celebrations. Similarly to how we have preceded Christmas Day with the celebration of Advent, we are succeeding it by celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, leading up to Epiphany or Three Kings Day on 6 January.

There are two ways of counting the “Twelve Days.” The first is to make Christmas Day the first day, with the twelfth day falling on 5 January (Twelfth Night), the eve of Epiphany. The second begins counting on the evening of 25 December with the “first day” continuing until the afternoon of the 26th, so the twelfth day begins on the evening of 5 January and continues through the afternoon of the sixth.

What we’re doing is closest to the second tradition: since there are twelve days between western Christmas and Ethiopian Christmas (my birthday), we are starting to count on 26 December and the twelfth day falls on 6 January: Epiphany/ Ethiopian Christmas Eve. We then have a final celebration on 7 January (Ethiopian Christmas/ my birthday) and then the celebrations are finally over.

This provides a bit of an extension to the season, which helps to avoid the big post-Christmas-Day-letdown, provides a bit of a gentle wind-down to Christmas, and means you don’t have to do “everything” on Christmas Day. If there’s something celebratory you want to do, it can happen during the following twelve days.

What I’ve instituted this year, to help “guide” the celebration, is a “Twelve Days” calendar, similar to the Advent calendar. This one is composed of twelve small bags I sewed to a long banner. A small surprise or clue leading to a surprise is contained in each bag, and one bag is opened each day.

Again, to minimize the amount of “stuff,” most of the surprises related to activities or events rather than more gifts. This year we hosted a tea party on Sunday 4 January, so at least half of the surprises related to preparations for the tea party: the first day we prepared invitations and mailed them out; one day we made decorations; on three days we baked treats (tarts, Rice Krispie squares, and scones) and then one day’s “surprise” was, of course, hosting the tea party!

Laolao also told us about the Mexican tradition, one they experienced while wintering in Oaxaca a couple of winters, of baking a King’s Cake with a coin in it, and whoever gets the piece of cake with the coin has to bring the cake to the next party! I managed to find time to do that, too.

The remaining days’ surprises have related to celebrating Button’s Family Day (another reason to extend the season!) and New Year’s (a “scavenger hunt” to treats for a late-night New Year’s Eve movie-watching evening), and, on the first day back to school, they each received a little gift.

We invited about eight friends to our Tea Party and spent the time chatting and playing games by the fireside and Christmas tree. It was a lovely last-day-before-school afternoon!