The 12 Days of Christmas

We read an interesting article in The Times this weekend about being ‘merry’ over the holidays. Apparently, the phrase Merry Christmas comes from the middle ages when being merry was part of the cultural mentality. During this time, Christmas lasted for 12 days. These days were for doing nothing whatsoever except eating, drinking, dancing, singing and playing the lute. In fact one was not allowed to do any work. So when we say Merry Christmas we are embracing this spirit. Interestingly, the author describes how the medieval peoples valued community rather than individualism and considered that having a good time led to the smooth functioning of the village. Sadly, all of this was attacked during the mid 1600s by the Puritans. They attacked everything enjoyable. In fact, they actually cancelled Christmas! Believe it or not, Christmas was officially illegal for fifteen years between 1645-1660. Luckily this didn’t stop the British merry-makers. It became a social duty and a rebellious act to indulge in merriment!

This year we are going to indulge in a little merriment of our own. We will embrace the full twelve days of Christmas and the accompanying merriment. It is our revolutionary duty! Plus, we have both had previous Christmases fall victim to a somewhat Puritan sentiment and we refuse to let it take over this year! We will take some artistic license in which actual 12 days we will use for our merry-making. For us the twelve days of Christmas will be from Dec 23rd until Jan 3rd. Perhaps our twelve days of Christmas will sound a little something like this:

Twelve masterpieces admired at the Louvre
Eleven historical artefacts viewed at the British museum,
Ten hours of shopping,
Nine attempts for Brent to speak French,
Eight rides on the tube/metro,
Seven times around the London Eye,
Six French pastries devoured,
Five pubs attended,
Four £15 martinis savoured,
Three nights stay at the Dukes,
Two West End shows,
And the trip of a lifetime!

Sadly, all this merriment will leave little time for blogging. We will have to get caught up when we return home in 2007. If you want to check out a few links to see what we will be up to check out these:
www.dukeshotel.com
www.avonmorehotel.co.uk
www.hotel-langlois.com
www.londontown.com/London/Christmas_in_London_2006
www.eatinparis.com
www.laduree.fr (just for Patti)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!