The
Twelve Days of Christmas
Let
me share with you what J. Patrick Bradley, who is the chief
economist at the Provident National Bank in Philadelphia,
calculates to be today's cost for what one's True Love would
give to thee for the Twelve Days of Christmas. One partridge
in a pear tree, he says comes to $27.48. The partridge is
$15.00. The pear tree is $12.48. Two turtledoves, $50.00.
Three French hens, $15.00. Four calling birds, $280.00.
Five golden earrings, $600.00. Six geese a-laying, about
$150.00. Seven swans a-swimming, $7,000.00. Eight maids
a-milking, $30.40. Nine ladies dancing, $2,417.90. Ten lords
a-leaping, $2,686.56 (obviously, a stronger union). Eleven
pipers piping, $947.70. Twelve drummers drumming, $1,026.68.
If you wanted to give all these to your True Love for the
Twelve Days of Christmas today, your grand total would be
$15,231.72.
But,
of course, that's an economist's point of view. He looks
at the old song in terms of dollars and cents. We look at
it as a pleasant holiday nonsense ditty. But in the past,
others looked at it more profoundly because this seemingly
harmless tune held a deep Christian secret.
"The
Twelve Days of Christmas" was written in the sixteenth
century. Moreover, it was written by a couple of wily Jesuits
who were playing a dangerous game. For you see, this was
sixteenth-century England and in sixteenth-century England
anything Catholic was prohibited and, if found out, was
punishable by imprisonment and death. As a result, the Catholic
faith was forced underground. Still, there was, as you can
imagine, a desperate need to encourage the faith and, above
all, to instill it into the next generation. So these Jesuits
came up with a way to teach the outline of faith-but in
code. And the code was our song.
It
sounds harmless enough to us, but let us look at it more
closely. The twelve days of Christmas, as everyone knew,
was the nativity celebration from Christmas Day to Epiphany.
"My true love said to me" is God speaking to the
anonymous Catholic.
"Twelve
drummers drumming" are not, as you might guess, the
twelve Apostles, but rather the twelve beliefs outlined
in the Apostles Creed.
The
"eleven pipers piping" are the eleven apostles
- Judas having left - who pipe the faith in an unbroken
tradition.
The
"ten lords a-leaping" are the Ten Commandments.
The
"nine ladies dancing" are the nine choirs of angels.
The
"eight maids a-milking" are the eight beatitudes.
The
"seven swans a-swimming" are of course, the seven
sacraments.
The
"six geese a-laying" are the six precepts of the
Church.
The
"five golden rings" are the Pentateuch, the first
books of the Bible.
The
"four calling birds" are the four gospels which
sing the Good News; the "three French hens" are
the three gifts the Magi brought; the "two turtledoves"
are the old and the new testaments and finally, of course,
the "partridge in a pear tree" is the resplendent
Christ reigning from the cross.
Now,
for the uninitiated sixteenth-century Protestant Englanders,
the song was a simple holiday pleasantry. But for those
who were playing hide-and-seek with their faith, it was
a coded outline from which one could unfold the truths of
faith, a kind of catechism chapter headings which teachers
could secretly use to hang their teachings on.
