As far as our society is concerned, the Christmas season has long been over. The lights and the tinsel have been put away. For most of us Christmas is only a pleasant memory. In the Church year, however, Christmas begins on December 25 and extends for 12 days.

You remember the silly little song that starts off, “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree . . . .”  It details an array of gifts that a young woman received from her lover over a period of 12 days.

Her true love must have broken the bank at Monte Carlo, however, as he proceeds to give her two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, five golden rings, six geese laying, seven swans swimming, eight maids milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords leaping, eleven pipers piping and t…