January 6th - Twelfth Night

One of the saddest sights of the year is a discarded Christmas Tree bundled up and ready for the garbage men the day after Christmas. Do "you people" not know that Christmas actually lasts for 12 days?

You've all heard the song yes?

"On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me:
A partridge in a pear tree"

And so forth and so on. Well, back in England we still observe these twelve days... sort of. All our Christmas TV programming airs in these 2 weeks after Christmas, and we keep our decorations up until Twelfth Night (it's bad luck to keep them up any longer - though there was that one year that Richard & Judy got their dates all confused - and my were their viewers upset!).

In the olden days, these 12 days were a holiday from work, a time to party, the Yule Log would burn, and people would feast on Twelfth Night Cake (which has slowly morphed over the years into Christmas Cake, a rich spicy fruit filled cake, decorated with marzipan and white icing; a cake that no one eats). Nowadays, many people still take time off, mainly to attend the New Year sales and finish up all that goddam turkey (as in turkey risotto, pie, soup, loaf, etc.). But at least Christmas isn't over as soon as the clock strikes midnight!