Peter Leibert's Page

THERE WERE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Right after Christmas a few years ago, Jeanne Clayton, a former BPC President and a great Alto, was telling me the history about how the “Twelve Days of Christmas” came about. Jeanne, as you and I would have expected, made it clear that credit for this information should be given to her daughter, Frances, who lives in the state of Florida.

As a young offspring of Jeanne Clayton, her daughter Frances was sometimes baffled by the wording of the songs her mother was singing during the various performances of the Buena Park Chorus, so Frances kept a special lookout for this type of wisdom. Frances has now “reported in” to her mother that her research has resulted in uncovering the following bit of history.

From the year 1558 to the year 1829, people within the country of England who were trying to retain their faith in the Roman Catholic religion were not actually permitted by the King of England to follow the Catholic religious concepts in an open manner. In fact, King Charles was telling everyone to do it his way or don’t do it at all.

The Catholic faithful within England ‘were not that slow’ and soon started developing methods for communicating to their young followers in order to teach them the tenets which Jesus Christ had preached so many years before. The Catholic leaders knew the message, but more importantly they had to encode that message so as to transmit it safely to their followers. The Twelve Days of Christmas is the message. The carol is the encoded message.

This carol contained two levels of meaning: an obvious surface-level meaning, and a subliminal hidden meaning known only to the members of the church. Each element of the carol had a code word related to a religious belief that the children were expected to easily remember.

ONE - the one partridge in a pear tree represented Jesus Christ.

TWO - those two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

THREE - yes, the three french hens stood for Faith, Hope and Love.

FOUR - the calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

FIVE - the golden rings recalled the first five books of the Old Testaments.

SIX - there were six geese a-laying the six days of creation.

SEVEN - we have seven swans a-swimming with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They were: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord.

EIGHT - the maids a-milking were the eight Beatitudes.

NINE - the ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit:  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self Control

TEN - the lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

ELEVEN - the pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

TWELVE - the drummers drumming symbolized the Apostles’ Creed twelve points of belief.

Well, this is our history lesson for today. I hope you have found it to be enlightening and interesting. We now know how that strange song - The Twelve Days of Christmas - became “a Christmas carol.” Now, what about the song the “Twelve Days AFTER Christmas?”