Twelfth Night Invitation

Our Twelfth Night Committee gave me a buzz this morning to let me know that the local paper would be interested in a one-page write-up for our upcoming Twelfth Night 2014. Hey, free publicity, right? Here's what I just shot over to them.

What is Twelfth Night?

Twelfth Night, quite simply, is the celebration of the twelfth night of Christmas on January 5th, the eve before Epiphany. Historically, people have liked to save the best Christmas party for last!

If I could correct one misconception about Christmas, it would be this pernicious rumor that Christmas is only one day a year. Hogwash! Christmas has never been a single day. In the early centuries of the Church, western Christians marked the birth of Christ on December 25th while eastern Christians marked it on January 6th. Always happy to breathe with both lungs, the Church merged these traditions into the 12 Days of Christmas leading up to Epiphany.

That’s right, folks, the 12 Days of Christmas are more than just a song. Check out Dickens’ original version of A Christmas Carol, wherein Scrooge spends 12 days with the Ghost of Christmas Present, wrapping up his journey at a child’s Twelfth Night party. Or look to Shakespeare, who named his most famous comedy for the Twelfth Night upon which it premiered. (Attending Christmas plays is an English tradition stretching back to the Middle Ages.) Why, in colonial America, George and Martha Washington so loved and celebrated Twelfth Night that it became known as “Washington’s Holiday”.

These days you’ll find most Twelfth Night celebrations in New England or along the Atlantic coast. Christ Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for example, puts on a Twelfth Night extravaganza that involves the entire city, from marching bands and tumblers to firefighters and church congregations.

Three years ago, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church here in New York Mills held what we believe to have been the community’s first ever Twelfth Night celebration. We arranged for a medieval pageant with 20 costumed characters ranging from the Lord and Lady of the Manor to St. Nicholas and the Wise Men. Eagles Cafe provided a delicious catered dinner complete with figgy pudding, while the Mills Locker donated a fantastically hoary boar’s head arranged upon a platter.

We had trumpeters, jugglers, carolers, poets, fools, and minstrels performing throughout the meal. Small trinkets hidden in the King’s Cake, meanwhile, selected unsuspecting diners to play the roles of villains, thieves, and a Lord of Misrule, all of whom helped to spice up the evening. We even enjoyed skits and swordfights, though weapons prudently were limited to the Nerf variety. Not to mention the Yule log, the peacock, the swan, the Green Man, Herne the Hunter, der Belsnickle … you get the idea.

In both 2011 and 2012 we managed to fill our fellowship hall with 120 guests from this and surrounding communities. Alas, a perfect storm of circumstance caused us to forego Twelfth Night this past January, but now we’re back and bigger than ever. Twelfth Night 2014 is expanding to town hall, and all are invited—not only to attend, but also to participate if you’d like. There are plenty of roles to play and tasks to fulfill at a medieval banquet! Just get in touch with St. Peter’s and we’d be happy to coordinate folks with our Twelfth Night Committee.

The pageant begins at 6:30 on the evening of Sunday, January 5th, with feasting immediately to follow the program (probably around 7:15). We’re asking $25 per ticket to cover expenses, including plentiful food and libations. Should guests care to donate more, that would be wonderful, but Twelfth Night is first and foremost a Christmas celebration, not a fund drive. Our hope is to celebrate the full 12 days of Christmas with all of our friends and neighbors, and to give New York Mills an unforgettable Twelfth Night. I guarantee that you’ve never seen anything quite like this.