Fourth Day of Christmas

Greetings!

Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas.  According to Wikipedia, it is also Childermas or the Feast of the Innocents.  The article I linked to says it is in commemoration of the Massacre of the Innocents which was when Herod killed all the boy children two years and under in Bethlehem after the Magi told him that a new king of the Jews had been born and the religious scholars told him that it was prophesied to happen in Bethlehem.  The story can be found in Matthew 2:1-18.

The Wikipedia article recounts some interesting customs associated with this holiday.  To save you the trouble of clicking over to the article (although I encourage you to do just that as there’s more interesting stuff about the holiday), I’ve copied them here:

In Spain and Ibero-America, December 28 is a day for pranks, equivalent to April Fool’s Day in many countries. Pranks are known as inocentadas and their victims are called inocentes, or alternatively, the pranksters are the “inocentes” and the victims should not be angry at them, since they could not have committed any sin. Various Catholic countries had a tradition (no longer widely observed) of role reversal between children and their adult educators, including boy bishops, perhaps a Christianized version of the Roman annual feast of the Saturnalia (when even slaves played ‘masters’ for a day). In some cultures it is said to be an unlucky day, when no new project should be started.

In addition, there was a medieval custom of refraining where possible from work on the day of the week on which the feast of “Innocents Day” had fallen for the whole of the following year until the next Innocents Day. This was presumably mainly observed by the better-off. Philippe de Commynes, the minister of King Louis XI of France tells in his memoirs how the king observed this custom, and describes the trepidation he felt when he had to inform the king of an emergency on the day.

Interesting, right?  So did anyone start a new project today, or are you planning to?  Did anyone play a prank on anyone else?  How about reverse roles with your children or students or employees?  And what about taking the day of the week off for the whole rest of the year?  Today is Sunday, so, sorry.  Most of you don’t work on Sunday, so you didn’t really “win” anything as you won’t be working any other Sunday the rest of the year.  Now those of us who live in Bahrain and have a workweek from Sunday through Thursday, or those who routinely work weekends….  Hmm… Maybe we can get out of some work the rest of the year.  And then again maybe not.  I don’t think my employer would go for it.  What about yours?

Well, there’s always next year.  And the Feast of Innocents falls on a Monday next year.  That should enable everyone to play….

They are interesting customs though.  Very interesting.  You can learn the most interesting things on Wikipedia.

But the next thing is something you already know.  Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas and that means:

On the Fourth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Four calling birds*
(three French hens
Two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.)

*Note: Wikipedia says “calling birds” is a corruption of “collie birds” which are black birds.

Happy Holidays!