A lot of people assume that the “12 Days of Christmas” refers to the twelve days leading up to Christmas. It doesn’t, that time is known as Advent. What the song talks about are the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany (Three Kings Day) which is January 6th. So, “my true love” is giving successively ostentatious gifts on the way to the celebration of the day that the Wise Men brought gifts to the baby Jesus (traditionally).

I always leave my tree up until Epiphany…well, truth be told, it came down in February last year! I like the tree to look sophisticated and I love vintage elements. I bought a bunch of vintage skeleton keys, tied a red ribbon to them, and those are my primary decoration for my tree. Check it out: