And What Are the Lyrics to the Song?
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The Twelve Days of Christmas: what are the lyrics to the... https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/chr... Which are ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and what are the lyrics to the song? Sian Moore 2 December 2020, 17:05 | Updated: 3 December 2020, 11:23 It comes up every Christmas, and every year you forget the words (bar ‘Five Gold Rings’, of course). Here’s a handy guide to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, including its lyrics and meaning. ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is a rootin’-tootin’, singalong Christmas carol that runs through the twelve days that make up the Christmas season – beginning on Christmas Day and ending on 6 January, the day before Epiphany. Each day represents a new gift, starting with ‘a partridge in a pear tree’ and ending with ‘twelve drummers drumming’. It’s a traditional English tune dating back to the 1700s, which some historians actually believe to have French origins. The version we know best came from Frederic Austin, an English composer who set the lyrics and added some flourishes – including the drawn out “five go-old rings” – in 1909. Transform your dollars into lasting change. With fewer Red Kettles to help those who've lost their jobs, your $25 monthly gift is needed now more than ever. salvationarmy.org Sponsored The carol is a cumulative song, which means that each verse is built on top of the previous verses. Read more: The 30 greatest Christmas carols of all time > 1 of 4 12/6/2020, 7:54 PM The Twelve Days of Christmas: what are the lyrics to the... https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/chr... A partridge in a pear tree. Picture: Getty What are the lyrics to ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’? On the first day of Christmas My true love gave to me A partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmas My true love gave to me Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the third day of Christmas My true love gave to me Three French hens, Two turtle doves 2 of 4 12/6/2020, 7:54 PM The Twelve Days of Christmas: what are the lyrics to the... https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/chr... And a partridge in a pear tree. On the fourth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the fifth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the sixth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. Twelve drummers drumming. Picture: Getty On the seventh day of Christmas My true love gave to me Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the eighth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, 3 of 4 12/6/2020, 7:54 PM The Twelve Days of Christmas: what are the lyrics to the... https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/chr... Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the ninth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the tenth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the eleventh day of Christmas My true love gave to me Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. On the twelfth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree. Listen to all the greatest Christmas music in one place online – it’s Classic FM Christmas! 4 of 4 12/6/2020, 7:54 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 Jacey Fortin The festive season fell between two deadly waves of the deadly influenza outbreak. Families still gathered, often with empty chairs at the table. 1 of 9 12/9/2020, 2:56 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... Credit...Library of Congress, via Associated Press Dec. 9, 2020Updated 12:41 p.m. ET Not long before Christmas, as the pandemic was taking a devastating toll in rural Iowa, Rebecca Tinti was visiting some neighbors who had fallen ill. At the family’s farm, she found seven of them, including a newborn baby, bedridden with sickness, leaving a 6-year-old girl to take care of everyone else. Ms. Tinti stepped in to help, but she couldn’t avert tragedy. “The mister had been waiting on the rest till he had a relapse and kept on getting worse, till he died a week later,” she wrote in a letter dated January 1919. “I stayed till the funeral, which was the day before Christmas.” Ms. Tinti’s letters are now in the hands of her goddaughter’s daughter Ruth M. Lux, 72, of Lidderdale, Iowa. Ms. Lux has dozens of old family letters, which were passed down from her mother and her grandmother. “I call my house the Lidderdale branch of the National Archives,” she said. Those letters — updates about corn harvests and slaughtered hogs, interspersed with reports of illness and death — are dispatches from the domestic front of a pandemic in which millions of Americans were sickened and 675,000 died, among at least 50 million deaths worldwide. It has been attributed to an H1N1 virus that originated in birds. That pandemic, like the coronavirus today, seemed to roll across the United States in waves. The winter holidays in 1918 were marked by grievous loss. They came during a relative lull after the deadliest wave, in the fall. Another, smaller surge would peak shortly after New Year’s Day. 2 of 9 12/9/2020, 2:56 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... Image 3 of 9 12/9/2020, 2:56 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... Credit...Edward A. Rogers/Library of Congress, via Associated Press But the national conversation around private family gatherings appeared to have been less charged in 1918 than it is today, as many weary from months of restrictions bristle at guidance from health agencies to stay home. “Hundreds of thousands of people lost loved ones,” said J. Alexander Navarro, a medical historian at the University of Michigan and an editor of the online Influenza Encyclopedia. “But by the time of Thanksgiving, there really wasn’t much debate about whether or not they should get together.” So they did, often with an empty chair at the table. At the time, another major event was stealing newspaper headlines: the end of the First World War. Soldiers were returning to their homes, and the Allied victory was a cause for celebration. “This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice,” President Woodrow Wilson said in a Thanksgiving proclamation, which did not mention the pandemic. “God has in His good pleasure given us peace.” And although soldiers’ domestic and international travels played a major part in spreading the flu, news reports from the time suggest that the risk of infection did not stop people from celebrating the Allied victory in person. 4 of 9 12/9/2020, 2:56 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... Image Credit...The New York Times On Christmas Eve 1918, The New York Times reported that thousands of soldiers would be welcomed into homes in New York City and invited to attend dances and 5 of 9 12/9/2020, 2:56 PM Holidays in a Pandemic? Here’s What Happened in 1918 -... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/pandemic-holi... feasts. At one event at the 71st Regiment Armory on Park Avenue in Manhattan, “besides the fun and the dancing there will be 300 pounds of chocolate fudge made by pretty girls, and ever so many pounds of iced cake, mostly made by their mothers,” the report said.