It’s six days until Christmas, and the carols are playing. And one of the most popular ones – which gets rewritten frequently – is “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Those twelve days, as people should know, actually begin on Christmas Day and lasts until January 6th, the day before Epiphany – the celebration of the visit of the Magi, also known as the “Three Wise Men.” (For the record, we don’t know how many “wise men” showed up, just that they brought three gifts. Is is believable that one guy could have showed up empty-handed and offered to go halfsies with one of the others, and promised to Venmo him just as soon as the wi-fi improved closer to Jerusalem? You make the call.)

In American popular culture, of course, we are taking down the Christmas tree almost immediately after Christmas Day (not before Jill Biden presents her version of the Nutcracker, though), and Ephiphany barely gets a mention except as a noted holiday on most mass-produced calendars. The song abides, though, with its roots in the 1700’s and the version most people know today from 1909, created by English composer Frederic Austin. The joke, of course, is what would the singer of the song DO with all the birds and maids-a-milking and lords-a-leaping that the “true love” is giving as gifts? Well, Not The Bee has a theory.

Wait … The gifts of "12 Days of Christmas" are birds? They're ALL birds and they were supposed to be EATEN?https://t.co/oigcCV84Nhhttps://t.co/oigcCV84Nh

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) December 18, 2023

Could this song just be one long dinner menu?

The song was originally written in a children’s book called Mirth Without Mischief way back in the 1700s and some people believe that each day refers to a different bird that would be given to be prepared for a Christmas feast.

(SORRY, NOT SORRY, VEGANS!)

Obviously, you’ve got a partridge in a pear tree, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, 4 calling birds, all of which are (delicious) birds, but the first gift that isn’t clearly ornithological are the five gold rings.

However, it’s not certain whether the gold rings should be interpreted literally.

If we continue with the medieval banqueting theme, then they are most likely to be common, or ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) which were introduced to England from China in the Middle Ages.

Borrowing from this BirdSpot article, the theory that each lyric refers to a different bird is a creatively possible one. Though that article does admit that the original illustration in the children’s book does show five actual gold rings. But could you really expect the “true love” to be happy with just a dinner date for all these nights without a little tangible bling?

One thing we often forget in this day and age of commercialized meat is just how people used to have to hunt, catch, or raise their own game, and were not picky about what kind of feathers or legs their dinner was wearing. Just look at the lyrics. Hens and geese and partridge are still acceptable poultry to consume even today, but turtledoves will get you dirty looks, swans would get you canceled, and cranes (a possible candidate for the “nine ladies dancing”) would get you arrested for violating the Endangered Species Act. However, I think most people would be good with feasting on woodpeckers (the possible bird represented by “twelve drummers drumming”), so long as that insistent pecking STOPS. (I’m kidding. Sort of.)

While we can entertain ourselves with the idea of the feasts between Christmas and Epiphany would be most fowl (sorry, I couldn’t help it), there are multiple versions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” that have become huge hits within popular culture. For my money, one of the best is John Denver and the Muppets from 1979 (the televised version is slightly different than the album version, and sadly the video quality is not the best on YouTube, but there is a much cleaner video transfer on Facebook).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVjZqqDlBg
One of the more entertaining modern versions comes from the a capella group Straight No Chaser (originally from Indiana University), who shot to viral fame with their version from 1998.

Straight No Chaser – The 12 Days of Christmas (original from 1998) https://t.co/sO674ac4H2 via @YouTube

— Brian A Mullin (@Mullin1A) December 18, 2023

Of course, one of the fun things about “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is that the lyrics can be rewritten. Sesame Street has done it at least twice, including this version of Cookie Monster singing about all the cookies he is getting. Cookie Monster feasting on cookies for Epiphany is not a stretch. Veggie Tales turned the song into “The Eight Polish Foods of Christmas” which actually IS all about the dinner menu – which means the singing vegetables may have gotten the closest to the original intent of the song.

Christmas carols – and the music of Christmas in general – are one of the things about Christmas that can still draw people together – and one of the last ways that people recognize the story about a baby born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago that remains culturally acceptable. So make sure you crank up the volume and belt out some “Joy to the World” – or go for a “Silent Night” if that is your preference. It all depends on whether the baby is napping, because the cardinal rule of Christmas parenting is “never wake a sleeping baby.”

And may your “Twelve Days of Christmas” be particularly tasty.

Featured image via RitaE on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license