Twelfth Day of Christmas

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines Twelfth Night as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany". According to some, yesterday was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, but others say it is today.

The ambiguity stems from the medieval practice of the day beginning at sunset rather than at midnight as it does today. In some ways the medieval way was better because it meant that the night time fell entirely within one particular day, whereas the modern practice splits every night in half between two days, leaving some doubt about which day any particular night belongs to.

Anyway, the reason I am droning on about this is that it means today we took down the decorations and put Christmas back in the loft. I blipped the tree when we decorated it on 9th December and said that we hoped it would survive its time indoors. Well it looks healthy, so this afternoon I planted it at the bottom of the garden where hopefully it will live until next Christmas.