12 Days of Christmas: The Real Story and the Cost of All the Gifts in the Song.

According to Vox: Editor's Note: This story is being republished for the holidays. It first appeared in 2020.

While it may seem strange that Christmas spirit starts before Halloween, the true Christmas season begins on Christmas Day. December 25 is the official start of the 12 Days of Christmas, a Christian tradition that shares the same name as the popular carol.

Here are some interesting facts about this song and the festive season.

What are the 12 Days of Christmas?

The 12 Days of Christmas is a period in Christian tradition that spans the time from the birth of Christ to the arrival of the Magi. This period begins on December 25 and lasts until January 6 (Epiphany or Three Kings' Day). The four weeks leading up to Christmas are known as Advent, starting four Sundays before Christmas and ending on December 24.

Some families celebrate this 12-day period by honoring different saints' days (such as St. Stephen's Day on December 26) and planning various Christmas-related activities. For many others, after December 25, everything returns to the usual rhythm.

The “12 Days of Christmas” is also a well-known carol in which the singer recounts all the wonderful gifts received from their 'true love' over the 12 days of Christmas. Each verse adds a new gift, making this song very relevant for holiday rituals.

The lyrics of “12 Days of Christmas” have changed over the years

The familiar version we know today starts with the following verse:

On the first day of Christmas,

my true love gave to me

a partridge in a pear tree.

With each passing day, a new gift is added, until all 12 are reached:

• Day 2: two turtle doves
• Day 3: three French hens
• Day 4: four calling birds
• Day 5: five golden rings
• Day 6: six geese a-laying
• Day 7: seven swans a-swimming
• Day 8: eight maids a-milking
• Day 9: nine ladies dancing
• Day 10: ten lords a-leaping
• Day 11: eleven pipers piping
• Day 12: twelve drummers drumming.

The history of this carol remains mysterious. The earliest known version appeared in a children's book in 1780 titled Mirth Without Mischief. Some historians believe that the song may have French origins, but most agree that it was created as a memory game where singers tested their abilities.

The song is not a coded guide to Christianity

A popular theory online claims that the lyrics of “12 Days of Christmas” contain coded references to Christianity, which supposedly helped Christians teach the basics of their faith while avoiding persecution. According to this theory, different gifts have the following meanings:

2 turtle doves = Old and New Testaments

3 French hens = Faith, Hope, and Love

4 calling birds = The Four Gospels

5 golden rings = The first five books of the Old Testament

6 geese a-laying = six days of creation

7 swans a-swimming = seven gifts of the Holy Spirit

8 maids a-milking = eight beatitudes

9 ladies dancing = nine fruits of the Holy Spirit

10 lords a-leaping = ten commandments

11 pipers piping = eleven faithful apostles

12 drummers drumming = twelve points of doctrine in the creed.

However, this theory lacks logic, as the gifts in the song do not correlate with widely accepted Christian meanings. Historian William Studwell notes that this song is not religious.

This was not originally a Catholic song, no matter what you may have heard on the internet. … Neutral references assert that this is nonsense. If this were some catechetical construct, it would be derivative of an original secular work.

The cost of all the gifts in the song “12 Days of Christmas”

To find out the cost of all the gifts, one can refer to the annual Christmas Price Index PNC, published since 1984. Based on current prices, all the gifts from the song in 2022 cost $45,523.27, which is 10.5 percent more than in 2021. If the cost of each gift is calculated separately, the total amounts to $197,071.09 (that is, 364 gifts), which is 9.8 percent more than last year.

The rising prices of gold and fertilizers make these five rings ($1,245) and the partridge in a pear tree ($280.18) more expensive than ever. However, the cost of services remains steady: the payment for eight maids a-milking remains relatively low at $58.

Even considering the cost, giving these gifts is unlikely to be a good idea, just imagine how much trouble it would cause!

Are there other versions of “12 Days of Christmas”?

The structure of the song “12 Days of Christmas” has inspired many parodies. There are versions by Jeff Foxworthy, heavy metal band Twisted Sister, and of course, an adaptation featuring the Muppets.

Other attempts to reinterpret the 12 Days of Christmas through food include dishes like deviled eggs representing the geese. There’s also the “12 Days of Christmas Diet” that Olga Khazan tried in 2013. She calculated the calories in each dish from the song and found that consuming all the birds in one day, accounting for energy expenditure from dancing and celebration, totals 2384 calories – quite an acceptable amount.

If you ate all the birds in one day, not counting the extras, all these calories total 2384. That's not too bad, considering a typical American Thanksgiving dinner counts about 4500 calories.

It seems even more reasonable if you remember that to burn those calories, you would have to perform this song about 300 times – roughly 17.5 hours of caroling. And that’s probably not the kind of gift anyone would want to receive.