Last Day of Christmastide

A Romance Lover's Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me:
Twelve broadswords brandishing,
Eleven ladies languishing,
Ten princesses a-peaking,
Nine thanes thrusting,
Eight swains a-swooning,
Seven sheikhs a-shrieking,
Six Porsches a-purring,
Five hundred thousand pounds,
Four vast estates,
Three French modistes,
Two brawny footmen,
And a HEA under a pear tree!

[On a hisorical note, while Christmastide is the U.S. refers to the twelve days of Christmas including Christmas Day and the Vigil of Epiphany, liturgical calendars around the world differ wildly. (Christianity is the only religion in the world where the fundamentals are so diverse.) Christmastide according to the Holy Trinity German Church is Boxing Day through Feast of Epiphany. In the Church of England, it includes Epiphany and ends at Candlemas in early February, celebrating the Presentation of Jesus Christ at the Temple, a traditional Forty Days. In the Roman Catholic Church, since Vatican II in the early 1960s, Christmastide runs from Christmas Eve evening to the Sunday after Epiphany, the commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord, after which Ordinary Time begins. Jevohah's Witness and other Reformed and Fundamentalist churches openly reject the entire season.]