The Twelve Days of Christmas

On this December 30, five days after Christmas, you may have already taken down your tree and boxed up all the decorations. Not me. I cling to the twelve days of Christmas, the time that begins on December 25 and ends on January 5th.

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to inherit a 12 Days of Christmas set of drinking glasses from a grandmother. Picking one out for my daily iced tea is a small way I continue to celebrate after December 25. I try to use the appropriate day, which sometimes means looking in the dishwasher if someone else has taken a glass out of turn. Not everyone, I realize, is as Type A as I am about matching the glass to the day.

What else do I do to celebrate these days after Christmas? The baking is over, but goodies that escaped the clutches of visiting grandchildren (and their parents) are still around the house. My festivities continue!

I did change the runner with the Christmas tree design in the dining room, mainly because I want to enjoy the redbird pattern for a while.

My mother always left her tree up until “Old Christmas,” which falls on January 6 and corresponds to the end of the twelve days of Christmas. I guess my tendency to hold onto Christmas past December 25 is partly due to her influence. My trees will probably come down about the same time as hers used to.

I’m retired these days, so I can enjoy the calm after the storm, the twelve days of Christmas that begin when the merchants have obviously declared the season is done.

Now that the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas is over, I have time to notice what’s happening in my gardening world. I was a little disturbed to spot the daffodil shoots already poking their heads up in the backyard. Has the weather been that warm?

These spring bulbs seem to emerge earlier every year. I shouldn’t be seeing signs of daffodils during the twelve days of Christmas, right?

The amaryllis bulb I planted in a pot and put indoors in November, naively thinking it would bloom by Christmas, has only a shoot that looks similar to those on the daffodils outside. I bought this bulb, which was dug out of someone’s yard, at a garden club sale. Evidently, I should buy one of those waxed types sold in the big box stores if I want a flowering amaryllis during December. I think the bulb likes the light and the humidity in my bathroom, though.

These leisurely days leading up to Old Christmas have given me more time than usual to read. I’ve enjoyed both an old book, Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice and a current New York Times bestseller, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. As you can see from my bookmark, I’m still savoring The Correspondent.

The start of a new year falls within the twelve days of Christmas, and so as tradition would have it, I need to pause this week and consider resolutions. I stenciled a small cutting board at a ladies’ luncheon this past summer, the sort of thing women often feel compelled to do at these events. Once home with it, I almost relegated my not-so-great result to a closet, but instead, I put it on a table in my bedroom where I see it every day.

I’ve decided the words I painted on this plywood board provide as good a resolution as any going into 2026.