Today is Twelfth Night. You heard it first here. Well actually tonight must be Twelfth Night otherwise they would call it Twelfth Day. Also this is probably not the first time you heard the term so my statement is not totes accurate. Consider this as your first reminder.
This did make me wonder why ‘twelve’ days of Christmas. Googling comes up with results about the Christmas carol. Unimaginative, Google. However it is easy enough to see through the lyrical mist to find sources that discuss the historical significance of the song and on this occasion it was Reader’s Digest that came up with the goods. I didn’t even know that Readers Digest was still a thing. I suppose it is a trustworthy brand and can be taken as read.
Anyway RD tells us that “Christians believe that the 12 days of Christmas mark the amount of time it took after the birth of Jesus for the magi, or wise men, to travel to Bethlehem for the Epiphany when they recognized him as the son of God. The specific time period was likely part of the early church’s effort to adapt pre-Christian celebrations that helped the ancient Europeans get through the long winter nights.”
There ya go. I wonder about the logistics of their trip. How far could you travel in twelve days? Presumably there weren’t twelve days of elapsed journey time. There must have been some up front planning. Figuring out where to stay en route, where to refuel the camels etc etc. The modern day equivalent would be planning a trip from Abu Dhabi or simlar to Bethlehem in an electric car. Made harder by the fact that it was a busy time of year, as we know from the inability of Joe (?) and Mary to find a regular hotel room. And remember, they didn’t have AirBnB in those days and no tinterweb wtf!!!
The whole process for the magi sounds impossibly complex. There is no way they could have planned such a journey in the time seemingly available to them. Arranging hotel rooms en route would have taken months of correspondence back and forth until somewhere had been sorted for each day of the journey. It is also highly unlikely that they would have had advanced notice as this birth will have had higher levels of secrecy and security than any that had gone before. We all know how volatile a region it is in the Middle East. It’s dangerous man.
My only conclusion is that the wise men must have brought a tent with them and wild camped. It’s the only practical solution. This does feel somewhat counterintuitive as we know they were kings, from Orient far. For the reasons of secrecy already mentioned they wouldn’t have wanted to take their normal entourage, some of whom could have been sent on ahead, to pitch the tent or negotiate the use of spare rooms with local householders en route.
Everyone needs a bit of extra cash at this time of year so that could have worked. However that would be fraught with danger. Spies everywhere. As kings they could have dropped in on the local royalty but as we know King Herod is the one person they would have wanted to avoid. Hard to make up an excuse as to why they were passing through without giving the game away. After all, gold, frankincense and myrrh were not your regular suitcase contents. “Did you pack this bag yourself sir?”
I’m glad I was able to provide some more insight as to why today is Twelfth Night. If you have a curious mind like me I know it will have been racing. You now have no need to call upon Google.
In other news I was awake momentarily at four twenty ey em this morning when the milkman rocked up. Pure coincidence although the sound of the front door opening could have disturbed my sleep pattern.
We haven’t started on the milk he delivered on Wednesday yet. I will drink some of it at breakfast. It will be a late breakfast today as I’ve been busy researching the Twelfth Night and THG is already busying herself around the house getting on with her daily chores.
This does make me feel somewhat of an idle git but it is still the holiday season, albeit the last day of it. Tomorrow is the weekend. Good timing.
Whilst I have nothing in my diary for today I am going to spend some time tidying the shed and doing admin. I have a growing pile of paperwork in my ‘filing’ tray. This also tends to be where I chuck stuff that doesn’t immediately need addressing so I should take a look through it in case there is anything that has become urgent.
At some stage I need to nip out to B&Q to buy some tiny screws. I have some brass label holders that need screwing into the chest of drawers in the shed but the selection of screws I have available to me are all too long.
Ok gotta go. I have a fast that needs breaking and being a feast day we should make it a good one. Ciao bebes.
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Today I’ve been tidying the shed. Not finished yet by a long chalk but a start has been made. The map wall has been taken down in readiness for the positioning of new posters and I’ve put the label holders on the chest of drawers. At some stage the drawers will need some compartmentalisation but I won’t do that until I know what’s going in.
I also need to glue the butter dish, broken by accident (not by me surprisingly) over the Christmas period. We had only had it a few days!
My monitors have been straightened. For this I used a spirit level. You would think getting a screen level could be done with the naked eye but there were conflicting data points. I was using the TV, a device known to be correctly fitted in the horizontal, as a calibration point. However for this to work the screen had to be parallel to the telly which it wasn’t but now is.