EXTENDING THE CHRISTMAS SEASON

Today is Christmas. Please enjoy the day all the way to the end. Tomorrow is another day. Is there anything quite as over as Christmas when it is over?

As gifts are torn open, colorful wrapping paper and bright ribbons are reduced to trash. Fresh green trees that have graced our homes for weeks begin to drop needles. Finally, the dried trees are discarded along city streets where they wait like fallen soldiers to be collected by the body wagon. Even artificial trees are stored in plastic containers the size of coffins. Decorations are packed away in the basement, the attic, or the garage until next year.

Christmas is over!

In the week following Christmas, we may become preoccupied with returning and exchanging gifts, cleaning house, and paying bills. No wonder the days after Christmas mark a mood swing. The season to be jolly often dissolves into a time of exhaustion and despair.

The post-Christmas season can also be a time of blessed relief. For those who enjoy gardening, the mail carrier brings not only bills and tax forms, but also seed and plant catalogs.

The days between Christmas and the New Year give us time for reflection on the year past and anticipation of the year ahead. Opening a new calendar can be an opportunity to plan and organize by marking birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, and other special occasions. Stretching nonstop into the foreseeable future are bowl games for avid football fans.

December 26 is Boxing Day. It is primarily observed throughout the United Kingdom and former Commonwealth countries. In Ireland, it is called St. Stephen’s Day. In the English tradition, the day is a time to offer presents to the people upon whose service we depend all year, those who deliver our newspaper and our mail, bag and carry groceries for us, clean our offices, and service our automobiles, just to name a few.

The traditional twelve days of Christmas begin on December 26, Boxing Day, and end on Epiphany, January 6. These twelve days after Christmas provide an opportunity to extend the holidays. 

The song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is based on this gift-giving season. If we assume a partridge in a pear tree is given only on the first day and each of the other gifts are given only once, the monetary value in dollars at this writing would be about $45,523.27. This total represents a 10.5% increase over 2021 costs.

However, the song implies that the gifts given each day are repeated on each of the remaining eleven days. By January 6, the recipient would have twelve partridges and twelve pear trees. By the twelfth day, the beloved would have received 376 gifts, including 184 birds.

The cumulative cost of the gifts is calculated annually by the economists at PNC (Pittsburgh National Corporation) Wealth Management. It is an amusing and easily understandable explanation of how the country’s economy is faring.

Instead of sticking to the usual items like food, gasoline, and electricity that make up the federal Consumer Price Index, PNC tracks the cost of the carol’s more whimsical list to explain how prices affect the economy.

This year, the price of the six geese, seven swans, and other fowl rose because of increases in the cost of bird feed. The swans are usually the highest ticket item on the list. Each adult trumpeter swan is $1875. This year the tab for the swans is exceeded only by the ten lords-a-leaping.

The five golden rings in the song’s verses also run significantly more than a year ago. The price of gold rings spiked 40% in 2022, the highest increase of any item on the list. So is the wage scale for leaping lords, dancing ladies, pipers, and drummers. By far, the cheapest items on the list are the milkmaids, with PNC using the $7.25 federal minimum wage as the cost of their hire. However, other human-based gifts are well over $10,000.

For Christmas 2022, the bill of all items on the list with all of their multiplications would be a grand total of $194,951.59

The full list of items, with the percentage increase from 2021, is below:

1. Partridge in a pear tree: $280.18 (+25.8%)
2. Two turtle doves: $600 (+33.3%)
3. Three French hens: $318.75 (+25%)
4. Four calling birds: $599.96 (0.0%)
5. Five gold rings: $1,245 (+39.1%)
6. Six geese-a-laying: $720 (+9.1%)
7. Seven swans-a-swimming: $13,124.93 (+0.0%)
8. Eight maids-a-milking: $58 (0.0%)
9. Nine ladies dancing: $8,308.12 (+10%)
10. Ten lords-a-leaping: $13,980 (+24.2%)
11. Eleven pipers piping: $3,021.40 (+2.6%)
12. Twelve drummers drumming: $3,266.93 (+2.6%)

Before you actually make this your shopping list for your true love, consider for a moment how your beloved will keep, feed, and clean up after all of those birds. I am reminded of an old cowboy song, “O give me a home where the buffalo roam.” Really? The bison I have seen can make a pretty big mess. I don’t want them in my home!

Some Christians believe that the song was a catechism in disguise, used by English Catholic parents to teach their children during the time of Puritan rule in Britain. 

• The partridge in a pear tree represents the one true God.

• The two turtledoves are the Old and New Testaments.

• The three French hens symbolize the Trinity.

• The four calling birds are the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

• Five golden rings are the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah.

• Six geese a-laying refers to the six days of creation.

• Seven swans a-swimming are the seven sacraments.

• Eight maids a-milking are the eight beatitudes.

• Nine ladies dancing are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

• Ten lords-a-leaping represent the Ten Commandments.

• Eleven pipers piping are the eleven faithful apostles.

• Twelve drummers drumming are the twelve doctrines in the Apostle’s Creed.

There is no historical evidence that the song was ever used this way. Instead, there is considerable evidence that this explanation is a recent invention. All trivia aside, the twelve days after Christmas can have a deeper meaning.

A young father, a member of the congregation I served in North Carolina, was stricken by leukemia and hospitalized for several weeks just before Christmas. Because Stan’s immune system was compromised, his physician would not permit his two small children to visit their father.

When I visited with Stan on Christmas Day, his disease was in remission. He was looking forward to being discharged from the hospital. “We’re going to have Christmas when I get home,” he said in anticipation.

Stan left the hospital two days later. He and his wife gave each child one present every day for the next week or so. Spreading out the gifts conserved Stan’s energy and enabled the family to extend Christmas into the New Year. Sadly, Stan died later that same year.

 One year, in early December, Stan’s daughter, an adult by then with children of her own, spoke with me. “I remember that Christmas, the last one with my daddy, as the best one ever. Instead of the whole thing suddenly being over as it usually is, Christmas seemed to last and last.”

The twelve days after Christmas need not be a season of despair. In the afterglow of Christmas, joy and peace can accompany us into the New Year and beyond.

My prayer is that it will be so for each of you.

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Kirk H. Neely is a freelance writer, storyteller, teacher, pastoral counselor, and retired pastor.

He can be reached at kirkhneely44@gmail.com.

December Light 1916 is a Christmas novel by Kirk H. Neely.

It is available at all fine bookstores and all online booksellers.

Over these past months, I have asked that we contribute to our local charitable agencies. Thank you for all you have done. I will continue making suggestions because I have learned that these nonprofit organizations are quickly forgotten unless they are called to mind. Please continue with your kindness and generosity. This week consider making a year-end gift to several of your favorite charities. Please include your place of worship in your generosity. Thank you.