It’s the first day of December and that means Christmas is officially here!  This is my favorite holiday.  I love everything about Christmas: the food, the sparkly decorations, the music, the movies, shopping, doing fun activities as a family and the general happy mood that’s in the atmosphere.

Since I didn’t participate in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), in the spirit of The 12 Days of Christmas I am going to blog everyday for the first 12 days in December.  (By the way, before you send me comments correcting me, I do know that the 12 Days of Christmas actually starts on Christmas Day and lasts until the day of Epiphany.  But for my purposes, it begins on December 1st and ends on December 12th.  Okay?)

So here we go.

On the 1st day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

…..the words to the song.   Who can sing the whole song by heart?  Most people mumble the words and then sing loudly on “5 golden rings.”   I know gifts 1-8, but after “8 maids a-milking” I start mumbling.   We saw Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular a few days ago and the Rockettes danced to this song, doing a special move for each gift.   I was following them up to a point and then I didn’t know what gift they were dancing to; they were moving so fast.   Luckily in the end they sang along as they danced; you could see the whole audience nod like “aah…that’s it…lords a-leaping!”

In case you were wondering, it goes like this (eventually singing the whole song backwards):

A partridge in a pear tree.

2 turtle doves.

3 French hens.

4 calling birds.

5 golden rings.  (of course you knew that already)

6 geese a-laying.

7 swans a-swimming.

8 maids a-milking. (okay, here’s where I get lost)

9 drummers drumming.

10 pipers piping.

11 ladies dancing.

12 lords a-leaping.

Ta-Dah!