MOST of us enjoy the jolly Christmas song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I especially like it when sung with all the actions at the annual singalong at St John’s Methodist Church, over which Geoff Whieldon presided for so long and which his protégé Alister Berry now so well comperes.

If you have never been to one of these singalongs, you have missed a real Christmas treat! The theme of this song is, of course, the 12 days starting on December 25 (Christmas Day) through to Twelfth Night, January 5, before Epiphany starts on January 6. There are many versions of the song and many amusing poems based on it.

Visiting shops and supermarkets, however, provides a clear demonstration that there are more than 12 days of Christmas. Christmas in shops started immediately after Halloween or Remembrance Sunday, when cards, decorations, trees, gifts etc all suddenly appeared. Not only that but pubs and restaurants have started advertising their Christmas menus and even serving them.

Christmas coffee mornings start at the beginning of December, as do Christmas office parties. Decorations, lights and trees bedeck our houses for days, if not weeks, before Christmas Eve.

For many people I know, the annual Christmas singalong at St John’s on the second Tuesday of December is the start of their Christmas.

So how many days of Christmas are there really? I suggest 365 (366 in a leap year). If the message of the angels and shepherds at Christmas is that in the birth of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem we see “God with us” (Emmanuel), that must be true every day. All days are Christmas Day, for God is with us always, even (some would say especially) in the darkest times.

However, no song could possibly be entitled “The Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days of Christmas”, and we would struggle to find enough exotic gifts to fit it! So, I think we will continue to sing and enjoy the Twelve Days of Christmas for many years yet. I hope you do; and wish you a Happy Christ-mass.

John Keast, St John’s Methodist Church, St Austell