The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Happy twelfth day of Christmas! This evening is called Twelfth Night, traditionally the vigil of the Epiphany. In my Monastic Diurnal, Epiphany begins with tonight’s Vespers.

This was traditionally a time of feasting and festivity (all of which seem to include various varieties of enormous pastries) marking the end of Christmastide and the beginning of Epiphanytide¹.

These days, of course, the calendar has been moved around a bit and the Christmas Season ends … well, when exactly does the Christmas Season end? I’ll post about that perhaps next week, but for now, there’s no reason to not have the pastries!

One of the great Epiphany traditions is the Epiphany house blessing. More on that tomorrow.

1. Epiphanytide was originally the Octave of Epiphany, running to 13 January. After various reforms, this vanished as an official (sub)season, but certainly this last week of Christmas has a different character than the previous twelve-ish days even still. I see no reason that one couldn’t refer to the time between the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord as Epiphanytide. At least unofficially.