The 12 Days of Christmas (not the Song)

Ever wonder what the Twelve Days of Christmas was about? Did you just think it was a very bizarre Christmas Carol?

Nope, it's a very real event and it takes place from Christmas Day to Epiphany (the 6th of January). The feast of Epiphany is also known as Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night also signified the end of the feasting season that began on Halloween in Tudor times. Twelfth Night was the time when the world was turned crazy. On this day the King and all those who were high would become the peasants and vice versa. This feast was governed by the Lord of Misrule. Epiphany is seeing a comeback in the US because of Latino culture where it is known as el Dia de los Reyes Magos or Three Kings Day.

There is a question as to whether the twelve days of Christmas has fallen victim to the secularisation of society or to the Puritans. Either way, it is a custom that is pretty much forgotten in the US. British culture celebrates Boxing Day (26 December or St. Stephen's Day) which is a national holiday in many Commonwealth nations. The Anglican Church and liturgical Calendar still has the verious feasts such as Childermas (the Feast of the Innocents) and Epiphany.

On the other hand, the traditions of the Twelve Days were adapted from the older pagan customs, in particular Saturnalia. The holiday falls firmly on the Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere. Many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere have performed solstice ceremonies since pre-historic times. At their root: an ancient fear that the failing light would never return unless humans intervened with anxious vigil or antic celebration. The Twelfth Night traditions of the Solstice also have an influence on modern day pantomime where traditional authority is mocked and the principal male lead is played by a woman, while the leading older female character, or 'Dame', is played by a man. It is this pagan influence and revelling that offended the puritans and led to them banning Christmas.

The Song "Carol of the Bells" is the Ukrainian carol called "Shchedryk". The word "Shchedryk" means the "Generous One". It refers to the god of generosity, the Dazh Boh - the Giver God, which is the sun. Dazh Boh's feast was on the winter solstice; after all, that is when he started his return. With the coming of Christianity to Ukraine in 988, the people did not forget their ancient customs; they incorporated them into their new beliefs. To this day Ukrainians sing the "Shchedryk" during Christmas season.

But the 12 Days of Christmas can be either sacred or profane depending on your outlook and personality. Does one choose the holiday of the Romans or that of the High Church Anglican? Either way, it is a holiday which is firmly engrained in the Northern Cultures. It is a holiday that does not stop the day after Christmas, but continues until the Sun is revived.

You Putzes! Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah!

I won't bang on the Roundheaded Motherfuckers who did a wonderful job of screwing up the US and Britain. They did a better job of fucking up the US more than Britain. So if you wonder where things like the war on drugs, prohibition, the War for American Independence, banning Christmas, and a whole lot of other pestilences originated, you may want to look there.

I would be a whole lot more thankful if the Native Americans slaughtered the Roundheaded Motherfuckers instead of the other way around. Especially since they wouldn't have been around to support Cromwell and generally bugger things up.

Anyway, Jesus was a Jew and he Celebrated Jewish holidays. That means he would have celebrated Hanukkah.

So, why put Christ in Christmas when he celebrated Hanukkah!?!?!?!?!

Now, isn't that a title for a Country and Western Song!

A Purtian Christmas

Sure, I posted this at the bottom of the How the Puritans Stole Christmas poem and it's where the Writing a paragraph post had its "Genesis" (I Couldn't resist that).

But it deserves its very own post.

A Puritan Christmas

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Writing a paragraph

I learnt today about the Puritans and their beliefs. They believed that people had to suffer and be miserable because god didn't want them to be happy and have fun since that was a sin. The Puritans banned many things we take for granted, such as Christmas. I think this was because they were miserable people and they wanted others to suffer as well. I think that the puritans were very serious because anyone who was happy was tortured until they were miserable as well. Not everyone agreed with the Purtians because there were some people who were clandestinely happy.

How the Puritans Stole Christmas

http://proecclesia.blogspot.com/2009/01/poem-for-twelfth-night-how-puritans.html
(I found this whilst doing research on "Keeping the Christ in Christmas") It was written by Jay Anderson. I have to admit that this is very humourous, but makes the point that Puitans hated Christmas. These people who wanted purity of the Christian religion banned Christmas.

A Poem for Twelfth Night - "How the Puritans Stole Christmas" ...
... with apologies to Dr. Seuss:

Every High-Church Anglican and Catholic
Living in Jolly Olde England
Liked Christmas a lot...

But the Puritans,
Who were infected with Calvinism,
Did NOT!

The Puritans hated Christmas!
The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that their round heads weren't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, their predestinarian arses were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
Was a distaste for mince pies - shaped like a manger-bed in a stall.

But,
Whatever the reason,
Mince pies or their arses,
The Puritans saw the yuletide celebrations as farces,
Staring down on the festivities with sour, dour frowns
At the merriment and good will of those in the towns.
For they knew all the revelers were engaged in such vices
As eating tarts made of suet and spices.

"And they're eating plum pudding!" they snarled with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
Then they growled, with their greedy fingers nervously drumming,
"We MUST find a way to keep Christmas from coming!"
For, tomorrow, they knew...

...That the Christmas events
Would involve the consumption of pies made of mince!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing they hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then the revelers, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would start on plum pudding, and rare roast-beef
Foods again giving Puritans nothing but grief!

And THEN
They'd do something Puritans liked least of all!
Every merry-maker in town, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And they all would start singing!

They'd sing! And they'd sing!
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!
And the more the Puritans thought of the whole Christmas-Sing
The more the Puritans thought, "We must stop this whole thing!
"Why for over sixteen hundred years we've put up with it now!
We MUST stop Christmas from coming!
...But HOW?"

Then they got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE PURITANS
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"We know just what to do!" The Puritans began plot-ting.
And they made civil war against England's King.
And they built up an army, and the Puritans said,
"When we've won this war, we'll remove the King's head!"

"All we need is a ploy..."
To get the job done.
But since kings are kings,
It was difficult to come up with one.
Did that stop the Puritans...?
No! The Puritans said,
"Charges of treason and Romish sympathies will cost him his head!"
So they called a rump court; charges the King refused to refute.
And the court issued the sentence to execute.

THEN
They loaded poor Charles
Dressed in clothes resembling sacks
On a ramshakle scaffold
And severed his head with an ax.


Then the Puritans said, "Huzzah!"
For they had brought the King down
And they began to march
On all the churches in town.

All their stain-glassed windows were dark. Quiet filled the air.
All the vestrymen were all dreaming sweet dreams without care
When the Puritans came to the first church in the square.
"This is stop number one," The Puritans hissed
And each Puritan approached shaking his fist.

Then they broke all the stain-glass.
And smashed statues galore.
Their horses dishonored the graves in the floor.
Then they burned all the vestments,
And prayer books, too.
Then they said "Let's move on, we have much to do!"

Then they slithered and slunk, with dour looks most unpleasant,
Around the whole town, to despoil places where Christ was once present!
Stained glass! Statuary! Painted images! Candles!
All manner of popish influences that for years had caused scandals!
And they smashed them to pieces and threw them on piles
And set them ablaze, smiling devilish smiles!

Then they turned to the larders. They banned the Yule feast,
The plum pudding, the boar's head, and all toasts to that beast!
They forbade all the foods that had given offense.
And they succeeded in banning the pies made of mince!

Then the last thing they took
Was the yule log for the fire.
On the walls they left nothing but hooks, and some wire.

And the one little speck
Left in the church house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.

Then
They did the same thing
To the other church houses

Leaving crumbs
Much too small
For the other church mouses!

And what happened then...?
Well...in England they say
That the Lord Protector's round head
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute that "defender of liberty" felt safe from the strife,
He became the Commonwealth's dictator for life!
And he enforced the outlawing of Christmas! And all the foods for that feast!
And he...

...HE HIMSELF...!
The Lord Protector ruled the realm like a tyrannical beast!

A Puritan Christmas

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NB: Christmas was not only outlawed in the British Isles but in parts of colonial America, as well. In 1659, a law was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony requiring a five-shilling fine from anyone caught "observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way."

Thanksgiving

It's going to be Thanksgiving in Canada and US Thanksgiving is coming up as well. I have never liked US Thanksgiving for a load of reasons.

First off, it comes on Thursday and requires anyone who wants another day off to take a holiday on the Friday. My mom used to work on the Friday. Actually, she likes it a whole lot more when she goes to Canada or the UK where US Thanksgiving is just another day.

Secondly, it celebrates something about the Puritans surviving. Personally, I would have been thankful if the Native Americans had killed them all. My family that was on this side of the pond were Virginia cavaliers and glad to have a Dutch buffer between themselves and the round headed bastards.

I mean these puritan MoFos don't like Christmas since its a pagan holiday, which is exactly while I like it. They banned it in England and New England. Not to mention the Puritans hated the theatre and pretty much everything else that was fun. They weren't going to be happy, so why let anyone else have fun?

Add in they were a kind of precursor to the Religious right.

So, why I should be thankful about them surviving?

Besides, if the Indians with their bows, arrows and tomahawks had slaughtered the puritans the way they slaughtered the Virginia Colonists it would be one gun myth down. Funny but the gun crowd seems to forget the Powhatan Uprising of 1622 and other Indian massacres during colonial times.

Also, one thing that led to the Rebellion in the mid-18th Century English colonies was the fact that they didn't have anyone to fear and a need for British Army protection. So, if the Native Americans had more and better weaponry, The US might not be in the mess it is right now.

I'd be thankful for that!