Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Nine - Caroling

As with most things Christmas, caroling started out as a pagan ritual. Singing to spread good cheer was part of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, as well as a way to commemorate the return of light in the celebration of Yule. Many Christmas carols started out wassailing, or drinking, songs. People sang them to spread good cheer and happy tidings.

While singing songs to celebrate Christ's mass began as a pagan tradition from Christianized peoples and therefore looked down upon by most church officials, latin songs singing of our Lord and Savior's birth eventually became commonplace in church masses. Saint Francis of Assisi is often credited for starting the tradition of latin carols in church services in the 13th century. These carols were upbeat and energetic, vastly different from the usual church music used in those times.

There are a few stories as to how the tradition of singing at people's doors began. Some stories state that carolers began roaming from door to door in order to receive food or drinks in exchange for songs and tidings. Other theories include that carolers had to go door to door because the songs were not yet allowed in church or that people sang for charity.

After the Reformation, many Protestants believed that caroling was another reflection of the Catholic church. Despite the encouragement of carols by many Protestant leaders, Martin Luther included, caroling suffered a large decline. In the 19th century Victorian era, caroling experienced a revival and the tradition has stuck ever since. Many of our modern Christmas songs were written during this time.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Eight - Candy Canes

Originally, these sweet peppermint treats were straight, white candy sticks that were invented in the 1400s by French priests. As to its now cane-like appearance, there are many theories and legends.

One legend says that a choirmaster in the 1600s bent the sticks in order to represent a shepard's staff. Another theory is that people hung them on their Christmas trees and bent them in order to make them functional. However it happened, it became a seasonal tradition to decorate Christmas trees with the peppermint treats.

Sometime around the turn of the 20th century, red stripes were added to the candy cane. Now, the flavor of peppermint reminds many of this time of year.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Seven - Stockings

One specific story of Saint Nicholas began the very common tradition of hanging large stockings on our fireplaces each year. The story tells of three young women whose mother had died. Their father squandered all of his money out of depression, leaving no possibility of a dowry, and therefor little chance of marriage for his daughters.

One night, the Bishop Nicholas was passing by their house and noticed their stockings hung over the fire to dry. He dropped some coins down the chimney and they landed in the girl's socks, helping them secure their futures and beginning a very curious tradition.

Over time, this became a standard tradition for Saint Nicholas day, and eventually Christmas. Dutch children would lay their wooden shoes in front of the fireplace and Santa Claus would fill the shoes with small toys. The tradition evolved, and now people everywhere hang up their stockings in hopes that Saint Nicholas will fill them with goodies.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Six - Santa Claus

In the fourth Century, a bishop by the name of Nicholas of Myra living in Turkey earned a reputation for giving gifts to children out of love and generosity. It is greatly due to this man, Saint Nicholas, that the tradition of giving gifts at Christmas continued on after Europe was Christianized. Many Europeans still celebrate his legacy on Saint Nicholas Day, December 6th, by giving gifts to one another.

In many places, it became custom to give gifts on Saint Nicholas' Eve. One such place was the Netherlands. There, they called him Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas was dressed like a bishop, with a cape and hat. He has a long white beard and often carried a book that told whether children were good or bad that year.

The Dutch brought Sinterklaas to America, where he became Santa Claus. In the late 1800s, a cartoonist named Thomas Nast depicted him as being a plump, jolly man dressed in fur and smoking a pipe. This soon became the standard picture of Santa Claus for America, and the template was used everywhere.

The American version of Santa Claus eventually came to Britain, where he was mixed with traditional Anglo-Saxan ideas of the man. In England, he is called Father Christmas, and is not simply the gift giver, but the personification of Christmas itself.

In Germany, another gift bringer, the Christkindl, was created in response to the secular celebration of Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas. Christkindl was German for "Christ child". It was described a sprite-like infant with wings, supposedly the incarnation of the infant Jesus, that brought gifts to children. Over time, it simply became another version of Santa Claus, and Americans mispronounced it as Kris Kringle.

Over time, several more details fell into place: the North Pole, the elves, the reindeer and sleigh, the milk and cookies, etc. Today, children everywhere wait for Santa Claus to come at midnight on Christmas eve to bring them presents and Coca-Cola uses his image to sell their product.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Five - Mistletoe

Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that grows just about anywhere birds take its seed, and its berries are poisonous if eaten. So why do we kiss underneath this plant?

Because of the fact that mistletoe seemed to spring out of nowhere, it was yet another symbol of fertility to ancient Anglo-Saxons. Due to this symbolic nature, and the thought that mistletoe was an aphrodisiac, it was said that if a woman were kissed underneath a sprig of the plant, she would be married in the next year. Proper tradition says that after kissing, the man should plug a berry from the sprig. After all the berries are plucked, the fertile nature of the plant is gone, and the kissing is over. It is also considered bad luck not to observe the tradition if caught underneath the mistletoe.

This tradition seeped its way into many different cultures. It was practiced in Scandinavia, Greece, France, and may even been a part of Saturnalia and Yule. Today, people put mistletoe in their homes to observe a fun tradition that many either take part in or seriously avoid, depending on who ends up standing with them underneath the plant.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Four - The Yule Log

The burning of the Yule Log is another tradition from Northern Europe. The Yule Log was a large log that was burned on the winter solstice to represent the survival of light in the dark winter. Wine and spices were often poured over it and it was thought that burning the Yule Log kept the house free of spirits and brought luck to the home. People often saved the splinters and unburned parts of the log to start the next year's log.

When it became a Christian tradition, the fire changed from a symbol of the sun to a symbol of the light of Christ, the savior, although many of the same superstitions still held.

Around the turn of the 20th Century, a Yule Log desert was created out of rolled up cake and frosting in order to resemble the actual logs. It has now become a traditional Christmas desert.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Three - Christmas Trees

The ancient Germanic festival of Yule is probably the source of even more modern Christmas traditions than the Roman Saturnalia. The name Yule is descended from the old English word geol, which may have meant "feast" or "wheel", and it may have been an ancient name of the god Jul. Again, it was a celebration of the winter solstice and the beginning of the end of the yearly darkness.

In Germanic traditions, many things in nature represent fertility and life. Evergreen trees were especially symbolic in that they were still green and full of life during winter. For this reason, and/or the fact that they may have worshiped the druids that supposedly lived in the trees, they cut one down every year, brought it into their homes, and decorated it.

These Yule trees eventually became part of the Christmas tradition when Germans became Christianized. Again, many church leaders looked down upon this act, and some still do to this day. But nevertheless, tradition stuck and Christmas trees were a seasonal celebration in Germany.

It is said that the tradition spread to Britain after King George III's German wife, Queen Charlotte, brought the Christmas tree into the royal family. Their daughter, the soon to be Queen Victoria, took part in these celebrations. After She married her German husband, Prince Albert, the tradition became even stronger, and in the mid 1800s, people all over England began to decorate Christmas trees.

This tradition gradually spread to America, mostly through German immigrants. Eventually, it became commonplace to decorate a fir tree in your home for Christmas. Would it really be Christmas without a Christmas tree?