I've decided this year to do "twelve days of Christmas" on my blog, meaning I'll do twelve marginally holiday-related posts in the twelve blogging days (Sunday through Thursday, if you haven't seen a pattern!) leading up to and including Christmas Day. What better way to introduce this theme than with the song "Twelve Days of Christmas"?

I understand that the twelve days in the actual song don't refer to the twelve days leading up to Christmas, but are the twelve days following Christmas, leading up to the Feast of the Epiphany, or the "Twelfth Day." So in that sense, this theme is all wrong. But since in popular culture the twelve days of Christmas seem to be thought of as the twelve days leading up to Christmas, well ... I'll run with it. Plus, I'm not the merriest of figures in the twelve days after Christmas. I think I probably suffer from post-holiday blues.

So here follows some variations of the song "Twelve Days of Christmas," which is thought to have either English or French origins. I don't find this to be the most exciting of holiday songs, so I tried to mix it up a little.