Twelfth Night

We have all heard the well known song, “Twelve Days of Christmas.” It’s been around since 1780 when it was first published in England.

The twelve days of Christmas have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and each of the twelve days is a celebration honoring a saint. Day number 1 is Christmas Day and celebrates the birth of Jesus. The 12 days of Christmas concludes 12 days later on January 5th.

As tradition goes, on the 12th night, large parties were held throughout Europe. It was common practice that the roles of society were reversed on Twelfth Night, and the servants would be served by the rich folks. I know a little bit about how fun role reversal is as it reminds me of the time the doctors served us nurses a nice meal in celebration of Nurses Week. They not only served our meal, but they answered call lights so that every nurse could attend the meal. (I’m wondering if administration threatened them with their paychecks.)

Back in Europe, a twelfth night cake was baked and eaten at the start of the Twelfth Night. This cake was rich and made with eggs, butter, fruit, nuts, and spices. A dried pea or bean was cooked inside the cake and whoever found it was crowned the Lord (or Lady) for the night. This person would dress like a King or Queen and lead the celebrations. Bagpipes and other types of pipes provided music and games of various kinds were played. In many parts of the UK, people went wassailing on this night. Wassail was a drink made of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar. It was served from huge bowls, sometimes holding up to 10 gallons of the drink. When toasted with this drink it signified a wish for a person’s well being or health. The custom of wassailing is seldom done today, but we still sing the song that starts out, “Here we come a-wassailing.” My preference would be, “Here we come an eggnogging.”

It has been a tradition in Europe to take the Christmas decorations down following Twelfth Night. I have European blood in my veins so think I will use that as an excuse to keep the tree up and the lights burning for a while longer.