Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Tuesday was the last day of Christmas, also known as Twelfth Night or Epiphany. The Twelve Days of Christmas is a popular Christmas song and sadly, the history and the meaning behind the somewhat silly gifts are no longer commonly known. My mom took the time to research the song and wrote an article on it as well as a made a craft out of it...while the Twelve Days of Christmas are over, I thought some of y'all might enjoy it anyway. :)

According to tradition, attendees at a Twelfth Night party come in costume. As we enjoy events like these, we were quite excited. Instead of wearing our regular costumes, we decided to dress up as characters from Shakespeare's As You Like It (well, from the era and place setting that Kenneth Brannah had his movie adaption in :)). Melissa, Jessica and I borrowed some authentic costumes from a friend who used to live in, can you guess? Japan! Here are a few pictures from our party.

Our homemade Twelfth Cake!

L-R: Rosalind, Celia, Phoebe, and Georgianna Darcy

Our mothers.

The gentleman who crashed the party because the men's meeting was canceled. :)

The Queen and her bean.

A delightful round of Pride and Prejudice was in order.

And then we decided to mix up the characters. :)

Where to move on the board...

I wonder what she's up to...

Mom read the Hockey Family Moves to the Country to our party. Like I said...it's already a favorite!

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:25 PM

    How fun... I love to dress up:) I wore a real Korean costume for some Harvest Festival somewhere...
    Where did you get your Pride and Prejudice game? It looks super! I'm trying to plan a Jane Austen party in a while here and have very few ideas, so a game like that would be great.
    I found you and your sister's blogs a little while ago, and really enjoy them!
    ~Meg

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  2. Hi Meg,

    My friend got it as a Christmas gift and I believe her parents ordered it at www.ashgrovepress.com It was loads of fun and I think we might be in need of our own copy. :)

    I hope your party is a splendid success! Thanks for dropping by!

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  3. Anonymous9:29 PM

    It sounds like a wonderful evening! We truly enjoyed your mom's post on the 12 days of Christmas!
    Blessings~
    The Pollock family

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  4. Looks so fun, Tiffany. Thanks for sharing. The game does look like a lot of fun, too! Blessings to you all.

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  5. Hey Tiff! It looked like y'all had an AMAZING time! See ya Sunday! <3

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  6. Tiffany, your sister knows that I am not the biggest Shakespeare fan, but I had a chance to give it a try when I saw "As You Like It" at the library. I didn't wind up getting it. Maybe I should have....

    And what is that Pride and Prejudice game? Seems like something right up my alley.

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  7. Pollock family,

    I'm glad y'all enjoyed it! The craft is really fun too! :) We still have the place-cards we made when we did the craft for Homeschooling Today magazine!

    Mrs. Winton,

    It is a fun game! We're hoping our friends bring it along whenever they come over. :) And if our families manage to get together, hopefully we can play! :)

    Lenna-dear,

    It was fun...but then again, costume parties usually are! See y'all soon!

    Ella,

    Shakespeare is a favorite of ours and we we're always glad to find a good comedy. Most people we know who've seen this particular version didn't care for it...they found it rather odd and quite boring. :)

    If you've never seen a Shakespeare before, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one. There were one or two questionable scenes in it that we fast-forwarded...you can read a trust-worthy review here: www.charitysplace.com/review/asyoulikeit.htm

    Try Henry V for a first-timer! It's fabulous!

    The Pride and Prejudice game is a fun game full of P&P trivia questions, Regency life facts and the main characters of the game are the game pieces! You can find more about it here:
    www.ashgrovepress.com

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  8. So glad that you love the book. We thought you would find it as humorous as we did. If we had written the book, we would have dedicated it to all of our sweet friends (like you) who have moved to the country after living in the city for so long. Hope you chuckled as much as we did. ~Mrs. Davis

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  9. We've always been happy to let Christmas go on a bit longer, so enjoy celebrating the 12 days, too! Traditionally, 12th night would be Monday though, with the the last day of Christmas starting at sunset. We didn't do anything special for 12th night this year. Maybe next year!

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  10. Oh, that's so wonderful that you have the Jane Austen board game, I'm sure you are enjoying it immensely! ;)

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  11. Oh, parties! They really should be held more often, at least once a month! Plenty of holidays we could stretch out. There are the Twelve days of Christmas, the Week and a half of Martin Luther King, the 44 days of President's Day (It adds a day every four to eight years, you know!)

    The red and green look grand! It really is odd, but there is something so delightfully fun about sprinkles....

    Love the costumes, they are gorgeous!

    Are you sure the men didn't secretly want to be at the party? Cancellations can happen conveniently...

    A P&P game! Now, I am going to have to play that sometime! Is it tied to the book, or one of the movies?

    If that book is such a favorite of the Davis Family, why have I never heard of it? I'm going to have a talk with those cousins of mine....

    Yes, tis surely a fun evening. Is this a tradition that has long been with the McDonald Clan?

    "All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." You've got me listening to an audio drama now...

    Later,

    BFH

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  12. Mrs. Davis,

    Oh, every time the book gets read, we all flock around to hear it once more and laugh hysterically! We absolutely love it and have picked up several of his other works from the library to see if they're just as good!

    Theresa,

    We looked up all the details for the Twelve Days of Christmas and found them to be most odd. According to our references, Twelfth Night ends at noon on January 6th which is also Epiphany...go figure! :) But, it was a lovely time and we were very happy to continue wishing people merry Christmas for twelve more days! :)

    Miss Jen,

    Unfortunately, we don't own it...yet. :) Our dear friends brought it over and introduced it to us! 'Tis a lovely game, though!

    Ben,

    Haha...a party a month would be fun! But if they were more spread out, we'd have more time to plan them and make them really fun!

    Gotta love that Red40! :)

    Hmmm...the guys might have had such a plan up their sleeves...I don't know why, though. We made an extra cake for them to take with them! :) I think they had fun.

    The P&P game is based on the book. When you land on certain spaces, another player asks you a P&P trivia question. There are prizes/points you get if they are answered correctly. So, quotes from the book, details on personalities, etc...are all in the questions! It makes one want to read the book again!

    They haven't mentioned the book to y'all? Tsk, tsk... It's a fun book, especially if you've lived in the city before. :)

    We've actually never celebrated Twelfth Night before, but I think it's a tradition we'll carry on! We decided to have a party right before Christmas. Next year we'd like to plan it better. :)

    Shakespeare is oh-so-quotable!

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  13. Anonymous11:43 AM

    Thanks for sharing; it was an interesting read. Looks like you had a fun time! I love dressing up too!

    ~Faith

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