The Twelve Days of Christmas fall between December 25 and January 6, that is, between Christmas and Epiphany. Church customs, as well as some folk traditions reckon the twelve-day period as beginning on Christmas and ending on the day before Epiphany.

According to an old European form of reckoning, the CHRISTMAS SEASON ended on the twelfth day after Christmas. People relaxed and celebrated during these dozen days known as the TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.

In ETHIOPIA, Epiphany is a far more important holiday than Christmas. Whereas Western Christians commemorate the journey of the MAGI in their Epiphany celebrations, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians honor the occasion of JESUS’baptism.

Many Americans spend the exact moment of midnight on New Year’s Eve watching a highly illuminated ball slide down a pole perched atop a tall building facing NEW YORK CITY’s Times Square. How did this event, broadcast on television throughout the United States and around the world, come to symbolize New Year’s Eve for so many people?