Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Since the 22nd is my turn for the 12 Blogs of Christmas, I thought for this holiday themed post it might be fun to take a look at the carol that inspired this idea.

You've heard the lyrics many times before. It all starts with a partridge in a pear tree. One of the most repetitive Christmas songs you've ever heard, and yet it seems Christmas just isn't complete without it.

And there are very many versions of this carol. Interestingly enough, there are even versions of the original that aren't consistent. Has anyone else noticed that although we can all agree up to 7 swans a swimming it's free game after that? The ladies dancing, maids a milking, lords a leaping, drummers drumming, and pipers piping all come in various numbers. My personal favorite is the one that has 12 ladies dancing, since that happened to be my favorite verse as a child. :)

But seriously, there are lots of versions of this. We have a CD that has Frank Sinatra's kids who sing "On the 1st day of Christmas we gave our loving day the most lovely lavender tie." Awww, how sweet. Rhiannon post about her Australian version in this guest post with "an emu up a gum tree." Some of you may remember the 13 Days of Christmas Madame Leota sings in the holiday version of The Haunted Mansion. And I'm sure there are many, many more out there.

However, I would like to share one particular version I've had stuck in my head for the last few weeks. Being the Disney Princess nut I am, I picked up their Christmas CD when I saw it at the library a few days ago. And yes, it has a version of the 12 Days of Christmas. And someone made a really nice video from it for YouTube. So I leave you at the end of this post with the Disney version of 12 Days of Christmas:

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Heh, cute. I like how the singers sometimes make their voices sound really cutesy. My favorite adaptation of this song is The Twelve Pains Of Christmas by Bob Rivers Comedy Corp.

The emerald ring made me realize that I cannot think of a Disney movie that heavily featured a ring... which is kind of interesting, considering the mysticism and "magic" that surrounds rings. But, for all that rings sometimes have their own stories or are featured as important in stories, there are not many fairy tales that focus on rings.

Mandy said...

When I was younger, I would just be happy to get the 12th one, because I liked hearing them list all twelve things really fast =)