bjjb@ihuxl.UUCP (Betty Hodge) (12/12/83)
When do the "Twelve Days of Christmas" start? Is it twelve days before or is Christmas the first day? Betty Hodge ihuxl!bjjb
ajaym@ihu1h.UUCP (Jay Mitchell) (12/12/83)
I was once told that the 12 days of Christmas refer to the 12 days between the time when Jesus was born and the time the 3 kings arrived, which was on January 5 or 6. There is a word for that day but I cannot remember it right off. Can anyone confirm this and provide further info?
cjn@druxm.UUCP (12/12/83)
Me thinks the name of the day celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings is Epiphany (spelling?).
plaskon@hplabsc.UUCP (Dawn Plaskon) (12/14/83)
I believe the twelve days of Christmas start the day after Christmas. The twelfth day is January 6th, which in the Orthodox Catholic church is Christmas. As a child I was able to celebrate Christmas twice, once within my grandfather's family (they were one of the Catholic variants which fall under the Roman pope) on December 25th, and twelve days later with my grandmother's family (who were on the other side of the mid-century Catholic schism). The twelfth day is also Epiphany in the Roman church.
hon@ihuxv.UUCP (12/15/83)
The reason that the Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas twelve days later than the West, is that they never adopted the Gregorian calendar. In the 1500s Pope Gregory XIII reformed the Julian calendar by decreeing that a century year would not be a leap year unless it was divisilbe by 400. At this time ten days were dropped from that year to correct for accumulated error. Since that time the error in the Julian calendar has increased and the Orthodox Christmas has gotten further behind. Herb Norton