January 6th is the traditional Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas and the feast of the visitation of the Maji -- though in these benighted times the US bishops move the feast to the nearest Sunday, thus this year the 12th day of Christmas will be the 14th day of Christmas.
In honor of the day, however, I thought I'd repost the video I put together for Epiphany a couple years ago. I first encountered this classic orchestration of We Three Kings by Eugene Ormandy when I was a child, watching my dad give the annual Christmas Star Show up at the Griffith Observatory. Since the recording is hard to find, and there too it the music provided background to a montage of artistic representations of the Three Kings, I took the liberty of putting together a YouTube video for the occasion.
Okay, here is something I wonder about. When exactly are the twelve days of Christmas? I have assumed that Christmas Day was the first day of Christmas so that Jan 5th was the twelfth day and then the next day was Epiphany. But now I see people counting Dec 26th as the first day and Jan 6th as the twelfth day of Christmas and also Epiphany. And if Dec 26th is the first day, would that make the 25th day zero and actually make 13 days of Christmas? I am confused. Somebody help me.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the traditional Twelfth Night is Jan 5, the eve of Epiphany.
ReplyDeleteLovely, thanks for posting it!
ReplyDeleteI love that version too....we had a record that included it when I was growing up.
ReplyDeleteLove it. :)
ReplyDeleteMy understanding had been that Christmas was "zero" in the counting of days of Christmas and that Epiphany is thus the 12th day.
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