You can find dozens of reasons to love the iconic “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song. It’s romantic, the tune is catchy, and there’s that fun fifth day verse where you get to exaggerate the vocals like an opera singer on the verge of death. And despite it being twice as long as many other popular Christmas carols, the repetition of gifts makes it easier to remember than the lyrics to “Frosty the Snowman,” which everyone thinks they know, but no one really does.
Go ahead and try. I’ll wait for you.
You will find no such problem with the “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” We confidently warble on about maids a-milking and geese a-laying, but we rarely go a-thinking about where this song came from and what it all means. To begin with, most of us are wrong about when that first partridge — lovingly sent by our True Love — appears on the front porch.
The Twelve days of Christmas do not start on Dec. 14 and end with 12 drummers drumming around the Christmas tree on Dec. 25. The days before Christmas are known as Advent, which does not have set dates from year to year. The Twelve Days of Christmas, known as Twelvetide, begin on Christmas Day and end on Jan. 6, which is called Epiphany, the day after “Twelfth Night” festivities. That’s good because since swans a-swimming are pricy, it’s best to get them on the after-Christmas sale.
In fact, according to PNC Bank, which calculates the cost our True Love incurs by sending his odd offerings every year, swimming swans are the costliest of all the gifts. In December 2022, a set of seven swans went for the exorbitant price of $13,124.93. PNC has been making these calculations for the past 39 years and has created what is known as the Christmas Price Index. Each group of gifts is given a dollar value, based on current market rates, and that price is multiplied by the number of times our True Love delivers duplicate sets.
For example, on the first day of Christmas our True Love gives to us a partridge in a pear tree. But on the second day of Christmas our True Love gives to us two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. Twelve partridges and 12 pear trees will be delivered to our house before our True Love finally stops with his insane gift giving on that last day of Christmas. And according to PNC, the price of all those 364 gifts totaled together in 2022 was a whopping $197,971.09.
Generous? Yes. Over the top, intrusive, and bordering on might-need-to-get-a-restraining order creepy? Absolutely.
Sure, there is probably some girl out there who would love to post Instagram pictures of herself, wearing multiple gold rings, and smiling in front of all those maids a-milking, but most of us do not want to end up with 22 pipers piping along to the beat of 12 drummers drumming, while those lords and ladies are leaping and whirling all over the place, disturbing the poor milkmaids who are just trying to do their job, all while 184 birds are flapping and pooping everywhere.
And those 42 eggs those geese are a-laying? Eventually they are going to hatch, giving us more little creatures to care for. We’ve all been cautioned against giving puppies as gifts, so why is no one concerned about the 22 turtle doves that have now found their “forever home” in our den? And if no one is there to sign for 10 lords a-leaping, does UPS just leave them on your front porch? Or do you have to go pick them up at the post office the next day?
I am sorry, but the 40 gold rings, as nice as they are, are not going to make up for all of that mess and inconvenience.
The very first True Love probably didn’t even think of about the bedlam he was creating. In fact, the original True Love, with his peculiar gift giving style, didn’t even appear in a song. The first printed version of The Twelve Days of Christmas appeared as a cumulative verse poem — one in which a new line is added to the previous verse — in a 1780s children’s book called Mirth without Mischief. But most scholars agree that The Twelve Days of Christmas was written much earlier than that, most likely in France, around the year 750 A.D.
It started as a memory and forfeits game played during the Feast of Epiphany, in which each child had to add a verse to the poem and remember what was previously recited. If a mistake was made — perhaps a player said there were eight swans a-swimming when we all know there were only seven — the errant player had to forfeit something, such as a small gift or a kiss. Because it was played during feast time, where cooked fowl was a popular entree, scholars believe that is why the poem references so many birds. So. Many. Birds.
According to research, every feathered friend that was delivered live in the poem was one that might have been cooked and served during the 12 Christmas banquets. The last five gifts are thought to symbolize the shows performed during those celebrations. While watching maids a-milking doesn’t sound particularly enthralling, this was before the invention of Netflix so their choices for entertainment were limited.
Since the publication of Mirth without Mischief, the verses have gone through many modifications. For example, James Halliwell-Phillipps published an 1842 version of the poem in which sailing ships, ladies spinning, and bells a-ringing were given by “My Mother,” and not our True Love. However, when he reprinted the poem in 1853, our True Love reappeared as the gift giver, so perhaps it was the True Love all along, cleverly disguised as somebody’s mother.
In other early versions, instead of a partridge in a pear tree just a part of a juniper tree was given, which is certainly more space efficient. Some had hares a-running, bears a-baiting, and bulls a-roaring, until finally, around 1900, drummers drumming and pipers piping were settled upon as the perfect Christmas gifts to send to a young lady of a-wooing age.
Even then, the order of the gifts kept changing. For example, you might have been expecting eight maids a-milking to appear at your door. Maybe you even put up a temporary barn, but the order got shuffled and instead, you found eight ladies dancing on your porch. And let me tell you, those ladies take offense if you suggest they dance in the barn.
It wasn’t until 1906, the year Frederic Austin put the poem to music, that the official gift order was finally agreed upon. Below are the days and gifts that we have all come to expect from our eccentric, overly generous True Love, who has obviously never read anything by Marie Kondo, to deliver during our Twelve Days of Christmas.
A Partridge in a Pear Tree — It is unlikely that the very first True Love, back in 700 A.D. France, sent a partridge in a pear tree. Partridges are ground birds and aren’t going to be found hanging out in any tree. He probably sent just one partridge, which in French is “one perdrix,” pronounced “oon pear-dree.” When the poem migrated to England, it is thought that the English children said, “Partridge, une perdrix” like one might do when translating a word from one language to another. And that is the most “reasonable” explanation of how all of those partridges in all of those pear trees ended up in our house.
Two Turtle Doves — Our True Love would have a difficult time sending us turtle doves because they don’t live in North America, and even in their native Europe they are declining in numbers. He could, however, send us a copy of the Hallmark movie Two Turtle Doves about a big city career woman who moves to a small town and discovers the real meaning of Christmas, with the help of a good-looking local widower, his adorable wise-beyond-her years daughter, and a random disgruntled old dude who once again finds happiness in the magic of the season. Or really just any Hallmark movie…
Three French Hens — There are versions that refer to these French hens as Fat Hens, but we don’t like to body shame.
Four Calling Birds — Our True Love originally gave colly birds, which meant blackbirds, but over the years this morphed into calling birds. Personally, I think a blackbird would be a better choice because the noise level in the house, what with all those darn drummers drumming, is already unbearable. In the Scottish version of the song, the gift giver sends, on the fourth day, only one — one — grey goose, which is nice. Nicer still would be if he sent the grey goose in the form of vodka.
Five Golden Rings — Sadly, these were not originally meant to be gold rings. They were, in fact, more birds. They referred to the ring-necked pheasant that was often served at the Twelve Days Feasts. Some purists insist on singing this as “five gold rings” — loudly — but five golden rings is the most accepted standard.
Six Geese a-Laying — This is actually a double gift because all of those geese come with eggs. And since we do not typically eat goose eggs, those eggs will become geese, which will probably lay more eggs. And so on and so on and so on. We are going to need a much bigger yard.
Seven Swans a-Swimming — These swimming swans are the most expensive item on the gift list, presumably because they require very delicate and labor intensive care, and they can take up to three or four years to breed. And some never breed at all, perhaps because they never found “the one.” That is probably why one version of this song has a fiscally minded gift giver bestowing to his sweetheart just one “bull that is brown” on the seventh day. While that does sound more financially responsible, things could quickly get out of hand the next day when the bull gets a load of all the cows the maids are a-milking.
Eight Maids a-Milking — According to the PNC Christmas Price Index, this is the least expensive item on the list, costing just $58 for eight maids to complete their milking chores, which is just wrong. Those poor maids have to do their job with hens and geese flapping around and bothering the cows, and you just know the dancing ladies who arrive tomorrow aren’t going to help out. They won’t even go in the barn and are probably just making fun of our poor, underpaid milkmaids. Hallmark should make a movie in which the milkmaids and the dancing ladies trade places and everyone, including some random disgruntled old dude, discovers the true meaning of Christmas, finds happiness in the magic of the season, and gains a new life skill that pays next to nothing but is nonetheless personally fulfilling.
Nine Ladies Dancing — Our True Love hires these somewhat snobby, won’t lift a hand to help the poor milkmaids, and have yet to find happiness in the magic of the season, dancers at a cost of $8,308.12 per performance. The Scottish True Love gave just three swans a-merry swimming on the ninth day. I guess they were extremely happy swimming swans perhaps because they knew how expensive they were.
Ten Lords a-Leaping — Up until the 10th day, I have preferred everything the space-minding Scottish True Love gave to his sweetheart. However, on this day, the Scottish True Love has gifted his paramour with an Arabian baboon. Seriously?? A baboon??
I am guessing his gift recipient felt the same way because the Scottish version of the song adds an extra 13th day of gift giving … probably to make up for the baboon. On that 13th day, he sent three stalks of “merry corn,” which isn’t the best gift, however cheerful the corn may be, but is still better than a baboon.
Eleven Pipers Piping — Most scholars believe that these particular pipers were playing a tabor pipe, a combination of a flute and a snare drum, which would seem to make the gifting of drummers drumming superfluous. But perhaps our True Love is a real percussion enthusiast and/or likes to foster competition amongst musicians.
Twelve Drummers Drumming — On this, the final day of gift giving, our True Love has chosen to give us the most headache-inducing present of them all — 12 people relentlessly beating on drums, trying to drown out the 11 pipers, who cheated and didn’t just come with pipes but also snuck in a bunch of snare drums.
Meanwhile, the leaping lords are torn as to which beat to follow and are now just lumbering about, bumping into furniture and knocking over buckets of milk; the ladies have stopped dancing and have started practicing their “just discovered the true meaning of Christmas” faces because they heard there might be auditions for a new Hallmark movie; and the maids a-milking have thrown up their hands in disgust because the darn lords kicked over their milk, the dancing ladies are useless, there are so many birds flapping about, and the milkmaids are So. Not. Paid. Enough of this nonsense!
At this point, all we can really do is move and leave no forwarding address — although we might take the milkmaids with us.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s hoping your True Love remembers you with fewer French hens and more actual golden rings.