Twelve Plus One Tiger Christmas Tales: Part 14

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Two drumsticks. That's enough!

Date: 5 January 2015

Original Gift: Twelve Drummers Drumming

South African Gift: Two drumsticks of course, for my drummer boy

Price: R180

Food: Chicken drumsticks

Saint: St. John Neumann

Scripture: Matthew 2 again (you can get a free copy of the English Standard Version Bible on Kindle)

Activity: Back to work

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, twelve drummers drumming.

This must be my favourite of the 12 Days of Christmas (apart perhaps from Christmas Day) because of all the intrigue, traditions and literature related to it. I’ll start with the most uninteresting and work my way up though.

Twelve Plus One Tiger Christmas Tales: Part 6

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Date: 28 December 2014

Original Gift: Four Calling Birds

South African Gift: iTunes Voucher

Price: R150.

Food: Chocolate Brownies

Saint: Feast of the Holy Innocents

Scripture: Matthew 2 (you can get a free copy of the English Standard Version Bible on Kindle)

Activity: Give someone a kind or encouraging word.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, four calling birds.

There are different versions to the song at this point. Some mention calling birds while other true loves gave colly or collie birds. It’s all a case of broken telephone and even left some unfortunate true loves with four, or rather 36 macabre coiled birds.

Strange looking coiled bird. Picture from www.rubylane.com

Twelve Plus One Tiger Christmas Tales: Part 5

The Third Day of Christmas

Date: 27 December 2014

Original Gift: Three French Hens

South African Gift: A bottle of French campaign. That was the original idea, but I decided a nice Wildekrans from Hermanus was a good South African spin on the French drink.

Price: Not too sure, as I found it in the fridge. But I reckon somewhere in the region of R100.

Food: Turducken a l’Orange (that’s three birds in a French sauce)

Saint: John

Scripture: Corinthians 13 (you can get a free copy of the English Standard Version Bible on Kindle)

Activity: Take a road trip and have the campaign upon arrival in celebration of the people you’re with and for safe travels.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, three French hens.

By this time most people have mourned the passing of Christmas and are starting to look ahead to hopefully more holiday before New Year’s celebrations. It’s also the time when most people who have spent Christmas and the holidays with loved ones start to get a little annoyed, as the best of families do. Thoughtless little comments or actions are taken way too personally, small children are getting bored and boisterous and you feel that the next wayward opinion might finally make you say something you’ll regret.

Twelve Plus One Tiger Christmas Tales: Part 3

The First Day of Christmas

Date: 25 December 2014

Original Gift: A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

South African Gift: My true love and I both really like Pride of India, so that’s what I got

Price: R40. Pride of India happened to be on special, but an actual young pear tree: R300

Food: Snappy Pear Salad

Saint: Jesus Christ

Scripture: Matthew 1 (you can get a free copy of the English Standard Version Bible on Kindle)

Activity: Church Service

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Festivities everywhere, time with family, specially selected gifts and delicious food. Unfortunately the excitement leading up to Christmas, mostly created by the retail industry, is often met by disappointed when it abruptly ends on empty pockets and overfull stomachs. For those who feel that something is amiss, it’s good to remember that this holiday which does not discriminate between sex, race, age, status, or even religion, has a little more to it, and lasts a little longer.