Our Twelve Days of Christmas

We like to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas in our family with a little fun and lots of traditions and hands on learning!  This year I got sort of an impromptu idea and decided to roll with it.  We decorated Twelve small yellow gift bags with color copies of the Jan Brett book Twelve Days of Christmas and the correlating Christian symbols and their relevance.  It was a fun and quick afternoon project and can be adapted to many different ideas.  Here's how ours turned out with a few instructions, but really it's carte blanche for whatever you think would work for your family!!  Enjoy!

Here are the embellished bags:  We used punches, decorative scissors, stickers and drawings to depict our themes. (For the color copies I used about a reduction to 30%) Inside each bag is a small votive that we light with each night, so on Twelfth Night we'll have all of them lit and a great party to boot!!  (Please be VERY careful when handling these bags with votives, we used a glass one inside each bag for extra safety)

Christmas Day:  Partridge in a Pear Tree = Jesus Dies on the Cross

2nd Day of Christmas:  Two Turtle Doves = The Old & New Testament

3rd Day of Christmas:  Three French Hens = Virtues of Faith, Hope & Charity

4th Day of Christmas: Four Colly Birds = Four Gospels

5th Day of Christmas:  Five Gold Rings = Five Books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch)

6th Day of Christmas:  Six Geese A-Laying = Six Days of Creation

7th Day of Christmas:  Seven Swans A-Swimming = Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

8th Day of Christmas:  Eight Maids A-Milking = Eight Beatitudes

9th Day of Christmas:  Nine Drummers Drumming = Nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit

10th Day of Christmas:  Ten Pipers Piping = Ten Commandments

11th Day of Christmas:  Eleven Ladies Dancing = Eleven Apostles

12th Day of Christmas:  Twelve Lords A-Leaping = Twelve Points of The Creed

Singing the lyrics to this beautiful old song would be a very nice accompaniment to beginning your evening prayer time, as well as a 12 Days of Christmas treat for each day.  We like to give Saints Statues, Holy Cards, gold coins, chocolate kisses (well really ANYTHING chocolate!!) small books, stickers.  And then of course the celebrating for Twelfth Night, but that's another post!!  Happy Feasting and Merry Christmas to you!

Comments

[Dawn]

This is such a fabulous activity, Meredith! What a memorable way to infuse the holidays with our faith!

[Ruth]

I love, love, love this idea. I would love to have done it this year. I'm definately saving this for next year. Thanks.

God bless.

[Cheryl]

Very nice idea, Meredith. Thanks for posting it.

[Debbie]

This is a wonderful idea! We will definitely try to do this next year.

Blessings!
Debbie

[Paula in MN]

Great idea. Looks like I'm adding something else to my To-Do list for next year!

[Mary Ellen Barrett]

I love, love, love this. I'm linking it on O Night Divine.

[KC]

What a wonderful idea!! I just love it.

[Karen E.]

I love this, too, Meredith! What a wonderful idea!

[Martha]

My whole life I've thought it was "4 calling birds"!! Which I've always thought a bit odd... Now I can wonder what's a colly bird instead.

Where's that blushing smiley...

[Lissa]

Beautiful!!

[Alison]

Meredith
we read The Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton as our family readaloud for Christmas. Its a hilarious story of how some children in medieval England marry off their older sister; the words of the song being central to the plot.It also outlines interesting traditions that were common then. For instance Jan the 2nd was dancing day. Also has the words for some beautiful hymns that would make great copywork.Thanks for your great idea!
Alison

[Phyllis]

Thank you! What a neat idea. I've been looking for something to do between the time that we celebrate our family Christmas (Dec. 25 with the rest of the world) and Russian Christmas (Jan. 7). Maybe we'll try something like this next year.