if music be the food of love, play on ~ twelfth night

Yesterday was the last day of Christmas.
Twelfth Night.
One of Shakespeare's greatest plays indeed.

It's rather strange. Each year I look forward to Christmas, but it's Twelfth Night that really brings forth an unusual gleam from within me. Nothing even has to happen on that particular day. It's the simple fact that the Twelve Drummers Drumming conclude a sixteenth century celebration each year, even to this day, as they close the beloved Christmas carol, sung by holiday enthusiasts or by festively decorated family members singing tunes around the piano on Christmas Eve.

I know that most people sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as gleefully as one might sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" or "If You're Happy and You Know It", but for me, it's a representation of the progression of the Christmas season beyond the Hallmark tradition and St. Nicholas celebrations. For me, knowing that a tradition of daily preparation for a feast so large that it took twelve days to prepare for it, really brings a fresh sense of parallel life to a century I desire so much to understand.

Perhaps I'm a nerdy history buff. Perhaps I search too often to understand the detail of forgotten lore and noble ordinances of a time gone by. Perhaps I'm a hopeless romantic who doesn't believe in reality checks and thinks she's going to wake up with a chamber pot beneath her bed and a room full of ladies-in-waiting.

I don't suppose it really matters. Through poetry and history books, stolen love letters and painted portraits of those once living, yet continuing to haunt my existence, I am discovering a silhouetted life of those before me, yet so akin to me.

This year, Twelfth Night came and went, unnoticed by so many. I think perhaps, next year, I'll bring a light to a seemingly forgotten celebration, prepare a Twelfth Night feast of my own, and attempt to share my hopeless passions with those who passionately (and hopelessly) love me.