People often think of The Twelve Days of Christmas as the days preceding the festival.
From 1558 until 1829 people in England were not allowed to practice their faith openly. During this era someone wrote 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' as a kind of secret catechism that could be sung in public without risk of persecution. Each element in the carol is a code word for a religious reality. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ. The two turtledoves are the Old and New Testaments.