Tonight is Twelfth Night ... end of the twelve days of Christmas. Boo ...
Interesting that you begin day one of the 12 days Christmas on Dec. 25th rather than the 26th. You are not the only one to do that and it is still a bit of controversy with historians as to when the Europeans celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, the 5th or 6th. Most calendars officially have Epiphany/Three Kings day (12th day) as tomorrow the 6th.
My family celebrates both days with traditions. Tonight after supper each of us will choose a piece of cake with white icing. Hidden in one piece is a bean. Whoever gets it is the king or queen of the feast tomorrow night and we have a proper paper crown to wear.
My wife fixes Jambalaya every year for Epiphany and the king/queen gets to sit at the head of the table, wear the crown and gets everything served to him/her.
Then my children get their Christmas presents from us. They get enough presents from Santa Clause on Christmas morning to keep them happy for months so my wife and I decided to let them get their presents from us on the day celebrated when the kings gave the gifts to Jesus.
If we had decorated our house fully, this would be the time that we would move the kings on our nativity decorations right up to the manger.
These are ways that our family has enjoyed the Christmas season longer than most Americans. Last night I met a friend of mine in the grocery store and he mentioned (almost jokingly) that he had seen my Christmas tree lights still turned on and wondered if I just hadn't had time to take them down. I spent about 30 seconds giving him an overview of our traditions this week and he seem surprised that a noncatholic would do anything to celebrate Epiphany.















