Patrick Comerford
Today is Christmas Day (25 December 2023). I was at the Midnight Eucharist in Saint George’s Church, Wolverton, last night, and later this morning I hope to be part of the choir at the Christmas Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, and tonight. But, before today begins, I am taking some time for prayer, reflection and reading this morning.
My reflections each morning during ‘the 12 Days of Christmas’ are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a verse from the popular Christmas song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
The 12 Days of Christmas: 1, A Patridge in a Pear Tree:
Most of us have been singing Christmas carols rather than Advent carols for the past few weeks – even in our churches. I imagine if I were to ask most people to list the 12 days of Christmas they would probably answer 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 December.
But today, 25 December, is the First Day of Christmas, not the Twelfth Day of Christmas. This is Christmas Day. The festival and the festivities begin today. Christmastide has arrived.
In mediaeval England, the 12 Days of Christmas marked a period of continuous feasting and merrymaking that reached its climax on Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas Season. Often, a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the revels.
The Twelfth Day of Christmas is 5 January, and our celebrations of Christmas traditionally end on the Twelfth Night, which is then followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. The Twelve Days of Christmas are a festive period linking together these two Great Feasts of the Nativity and Theophany, so that one celebration leads into another.
‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is a traditional Christmas song that counts out a series of increasingly generous gifts given by the singer’s ‘true love’ on each of the 12 Days of Christmas.
The song may have French origins, but it was first published in England in 1780. It may have its beginnings in a Twelfth Night ‘memories-and-forfeits’ game, in which a leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake. The player who erred at the end then had to pay a forfeit, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet.
The earliest well-known version of the music of the song was recorded by English scholar James O Halliwell in 1842. However, the early 20th century arrangement by the English composer Frederic Austen has since become the standard.
If my true love followed through with the 12 Days of Christmas, I would end up with 224 birds in all: 12 partridges, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 colly (or calling) birds, 40 gold rings (pheasants), 42 geese and 42 swans.
Since 1984, the cumulative costs of the items mentioned in the song have been used as a tongue-in-cheek economic indicator, a custom began with and is maintained by PNC Bank. Two pricing charts are drawn up, referred to as the Christmas Price Index and The True Cost of Christmas. The former is an index of the current costs of one set of each of the gifts given sent by the True Love to the singer of the song; the latter is the cumulative cost of all the gifts with the repetitions listed in the song. Of course, the people mentioned in the song are hired, not bought.
The original cost of all goods and services at Christmas 1984 was $12,623.10. The total costs of all goods and services according to the Christmas Price Index this year (2023) is $46,729.86. The True Cost of Christmas in 1984 was $61,318.94; this year it is calculated at $201,972.66.
One explanation of the song suggests that the gift on each day represents the food or sport for each month of the year and the lines that survive today are merely an irreligious travesty.
However, another explanation suggests that the lyrics were written as a catechism song to help young people learn their faith, at a time when celebrations of Christmas were discouraged, frowned on, or prohibited, during the Cromwellian era (1649-1660), or when Roman Catholics suffered under penal laws.
But this attempt to antedate a relatively modern song is without foundation, and all the truths affirmed in this interpretation are common to Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and are shared too by the traditions that developed out of the Cromwellian era, including the Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists.
The first verse of the traditional song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, is:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
a partridge in a pear tree.
Christian interpretations of this song often see the partridge in a pear tree as a figurative representation of Christ on the Cross, so that God, in his infinite love, sent on Christmas Day the gift of Christ the Saviour. As the poet Christina Rossetti wrote:
Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas:
star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus:
but wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token;
love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.
A mother partridge feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, recalling the expression of Christ’s sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13: 34).
The Christmas Gospel, John 1: 1-14
John 1: 1-14 (NRSVA):
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[c] and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Today’s Prayers (Monday 25 December 2023, Christmas Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love at Advent and Christmas.’ This theme was introduced yesterday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (25 December 2023, Christmas Day) invites us to pray in these words:
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in; be born in us today (Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that we, who have been born again
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.
Additional Collect:
Lord Jesus Christ,
your birth at Bethlehem
draws us to kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth:
accept our heartfelt praise
as we worship you,
our Saviour and our eternal God.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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