Health & Fitness
The Twelve Greys of Christmas
The holiday season is a time that is well known for celebration. As the year comes to a close, the holiday season also provides time to reflect on the year gone by and to think about the year to come. During these times, we are exposed to many familiar holiday traditions. One of the classic holiday traditions is the well-known carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.
While the carol itself is a popular tune, the subject of the carol, the Twelve Days of Christmas, is one of the most misunderstood periods of the Christian calendar. Contrary to common belief, these are not the twelve days before Christmas, but the twelve days from Christmas (December 25th) until the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th). (Some traditions include Christmas Day and count to January 5th, the night before Epiphany. Other traditions include Epiphany and count the twelve days from December 26th). Epiphany is usually celebrated as the time the Wise Men, or Magi, arrived to present gifts to the young Jesus. Thus the tradition is generally understood as counting twelve days from the birth of Jesus to the arrival of the Wise Men.
Though not part of the holiday season in all countries, each day is a feast in memory of a Saint or event associated with the Christmas season. As the well-known Christmas carol suggests, some traditions observe the twelve days by giving gifts on each of the days.
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It is no secret that I, like so many others in the Greyhound community, believe that having a Greyhound as a pet is a gift to each Greyhound owner. There is also no doubt that in providing a “forever home”, an owner also gives an immeasurable gift to each retired Greyhound.
In the spirit of the holiday season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will be posting a blog on each of the twelve days to share twelve different Greyhound stories from the past year. Some of the stories will pull at your heartstrings, while others will make you smile. My hope is that each of the twelve stories, or the “Twelve Greys of Christmas”, will display just how great a gift it is to have a retired Greyhound as a pet.
