This Song Has a Hidden Meaning: "12 Days of Christmas"

We’ve all heard the song "The 12 Days of Christmas," a delightful but apparently nonsensical rhyme set to music, but it’s a good deal more than just a repetitious melody with pretty phrases and a list of strange gifts. From the year 1558 to 1829, Catholics in England were prohibited by law from the practice of their faith. The religion was officially illegal until Parliament finally enacted the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. Until then, it was a crime to be a Catholic and to be faithful to the Pope. Fr. Hal Stockert claimed that the 12 Days of Christmas was written as one of the catechetical songs to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith. It was a memory aid when to be caught with anything popish would not only get you imprisoned, but possibly hanged, shortened by a head, or even subjected to the awful ordeal of being hung, drawn and quartered. I'm not 100% sure where Fr. Stockert got his information and all of this is being hotly debated online, but in my research no one can definitively prove their argument one way or the other, so at the end of the day there’s no reason why we can't put a Catholic meaning to the song if we want to.

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