Today is the twelfth and final day of Christmastide or the Twelve Days of Christmas. This day is important among Christians who maintain liturgical traditions: it marks the end of a 1500 year-old festival celebrating the birth of Christ, it is the eve of Epiphany. It is also the beginning of the carnival season ending with Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent. Those who are reluctant to bid Christmas farewell can take heart knowing that some traditions of Christmastide extend through February 2 or Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
For some the Twelve Days of Christmas will end with elaborate costumes, masks, feasting, music, dancing, and theater at Twelfth Night festivities where misrule is the only rule. They are indeed topsy-turvy events. Only the Surveyor of Ceremonies will appear without a mask. He will direct the company through a series of games and other activities beginning with the distribution of the Twelfth Cakes. When all the party goers have arrived, each will select a small festival cake or cake slice. Three of those cakes contain a hidden bean or token designating them as the king cake, queen cake and fool cake. The lucky holders of the royal cakes oversee the evening's activities before returning to their normal lives, most likely "below the salt."
Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) David Teniers, ca 1634
These Twelfth Night traditions have been part of western culture for over a thousand years. Some traditions carry over the night into Epiphany, January 6. This is the case in New Orleans where Twelfth Night parties have been popular for centuries due in part to their role as opening events of the Carnival season.
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| Twelfth Night festivities in New Orleans in 1884 |
We trust that you have experienced a wonder-filled Christmas. May you live throughout this new year in the spirit of Twelfth Night, finding joy and happiness in what often seems a disordered world. In the words of William Shakespeare, who had a bit to say about this evening in Twelfth Night, (Act II, Scene 5):
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Great or common - What you will!
And speaking of greatness here is music for the season, Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat in D Major. The composition was originally written in Leipzig for Christmas 1723 and contained four seasonal hymns. In 1730 the composer revised the work by dropping the four seasonal hymns and changing the key to D Major. The second version is the one most often head today.
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