A Favorite Christmas Song – The Twelve Days Of Christmas

1 True Love refers to God
2 Turtle Doves refers to the Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming refers to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

The above was provided by http://www.carols.org.uk/the_twelve_days_of_christmas.htm

 

We started looking at the lyrics to this song and determined that the amount of real estate needed for all of this activity to occur had to be far more than what was available in my apartment.

Take a look:

Each time the verse is sung that many things happen.  For instance, in the first verse we were not too surprised to receive a partridge in a pear tree.  We thought that was quite loveable even though that meant we would be required to feed the partridge and water the pear tree.

We didn’t look at the concept of having a pear tree in our apartment for as long as one of those might live, but we figured, oh well, we’ll just plant it out front.  The bird was another matter.  We needed to get it a cage, some food, and keep it clean.

And then came the second day:

We got another partridge in a pear tree and 2 turtle doves.  Now we have two partridges, two turtle doves, two pear trees, two cages (we put the partridges in the one cage and the doves together in their own), more feed, and then after planting this new pear tree, went and bought a hose so that we could water them.

Now along comes day three:

We get 3 french hens, two more turtle doves and another partridge in its own pear tree.  Now this is starting to get serious, we have the beginnings of a bird farm in our apartment.  Just imagine the noise that these birds are making.  The neighbors are starting to question the pear trees, but think that we have taken to raising pears for our complex.

Oh my God, along comes day 4:

Did you know that 4 calling birds can make more noise than the 6 french hens, 6 turtle doves and 4 partridges put together.  Our neighbors are now complaining about the noise.  We’re a bit concerned about the cleaning of the cages and what to do with that mess.

But we have 4 beautiful pear trees; we might have the start of an orchard.

Day 5:

We get 5 Golden rings.  What a relief, but we also got 4 more calling birds (now 8), 3 french hens (now 9 of these), 2 turtle doves (making it), and one more partridge and a pear tree (making 5 each of these).

The birds are crowding the apartment.  The landlord says if we are going to keep planting pear trees they are going to need to raise the rent to cover the maintenance.

Day 6 has arrived:

More birds – Geese yet, these are big birds and there are 6 of them and they are all laying eggs.  We don’t know if it’s alright to eat the eggs or do we need to wait for them to hatch.

We’ve also added to the other birds and trees and the neighbors have complained to the landlord about them.

Now that the landlord knows about the birds, we are required to put up a deposit for each of them.  That’s a total of 6 geese, 12 calling birds, 12 french hens, 10 turtle doves, and six partridges.

We went looking for a small home with maybe an acre of land that can handle our 6 pear trees along with all those birds.

Day 7:

Oh dear, we have 7 swans a swimming and don’t have any place for them to actually swim, so we called the local swimming pool people to put in a pool.

We added to the detached garage to make room for our now 7 partridges, 12 turtle doves, 15 french hens, 16 calling birds, 12 geese, and 7 swans.  The 12 geese are producing enough eggs for us to sell them to help pay for the maintenance and if it weren’t for the 15 golden rings we couldn’t keep up the house payments.

Oh dear, day 8:

Eight maids milking cows.  Well, the good thing is that we can sell the milk, but we are now required to move again because the housing project where currently live doesn’t allow the cows.  And, the birds are making more noise than the neighbors are willing to put up with.  Thank God for the 25 golden rings because we need to have a barn and an extra building for the maids.

Day 9:

We now have 9 ladies dancing.  It is good that we got this bigger farm since we also needed to expand the building where there are now 16 maids and 9 ladies.  It looks like a barracks.  And, the 16 cows have filled up the barn.

Day 10:

My goodness gracious, we have 10 lords leaping over fences like jumpers at a horse show.  Needed another building to house these guys plus expanding the barracks for the maids(24) and ladies(18).

The birds need their own building now since we have 10 partridges, 18 turtle doves, 24 french hens, 28 calling birds, 30 geese all laying eggs, and 28 swans swimming in the back pond.  This doesn’t count the new geese that have hatched from the first batch of geese.

Day 11:

You are not going to believe this – we have 11 pipers piping.  What a racket with all those birds getting riled up and we had to expand the men’s building and the women’s barracks again, too.

Day 12:

Drummers.  Can you believe this?

12 drummers (half men and half women)

22 pipers (half men and half women)

30 lords – all of them cavorting about jumping fences and over ponds

36 ladies dancing along with those silly lords.

40 maids along with 40 cows

42 swans swimming in both ponds

36 calling birds

30 french hens

22 doves

12 partridges

12 pear trees

Bushels of pears, gallons of milk, tons of eggs, lots of fertilizer, 2 huge barracks, and two barns, along with several acres for the cows.

I don’t know if the 40 golden rings is going to be enough to keep all of this, so I put the property along with all of the habitats up for sale really cheap.