On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve Lords a-leaping, eleven Ladies dancing, ten pipers piping, nine drummers drumming, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five gold rings (not actually rings of the elemental symbol Au, check out the link), four colly birds, three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge on a pear tree.

Get out the wassail and start baking those king cakes, it's Twelfth Night! The last celebration of Christmastime before the Epiphany, Twelfth Night celebrations date back to Medieval times where they signified the end of the winter festival that began on All Hallows' Eve. On the Twelfth Night, disorder and unreason are celebrated in the tradition of the Lord of Misrule, and the ruling family would take their place as peasants while the poor would pretend to be of a higher class. The ruler of the feast of Twelfth Night was determined by hiding away a bean inside a cake. The person who located the bean would be honorary King until midnight.

In American tradition, "King Cakes" are baked, sold, and consumed from the Twelfth Night until Shrove Tuesday (also known as Mardi Gras). It's association with religious holidays have been furthered by replacing the bean inside the cake with a small, plastic baby, a representation of the baby Jesus. It is often tradition for the person finding the baby to purchase the next King Cake or to prepare the party at which the cake was served for the following year.



The nice girl at the checkout counter was confused when she saw the King Cake. As the box points out that it's a Mardi Gras confection, she was quick to note that it was not yet Mardi Gras. I was happy to be able to educate someone on the tradition of the King Cake while people behind me were waiting to pay for their Bud Light and Doritos. Tradition before blind revelry, folks.



Mmmmmm... doesn't that look... sugary? And slightly burned? My favorite.



Courtesy of our litigious friends we so lovingly call "Americans," this warning cautions the eater that their baby Jesus cake has a little baby Jesus in it. This warning should cover the company's ass from anyone who tries to sue them over the plastic baby. Well, anyone except Atheists petitioning for the separation of Church and Cake.

For many, the Day after New Year's Day is another banking holiday. Many call it simply "The Day After New Year's Day." I've been burned out on New Year Festivities and while the prospect of celebrating by not looking at my finances or not going to the bank today (like it mattered, it was closed here, too) sounded like a good idea, they weren't very interesting.

It's moments like these that I turn to the Swiss for guidance.

January 2nd is celebrated as Berchtoldstag, one of the days of Rauhnächte or Twelfth Night of Christmastime. The holiday is attributed to Perchta (or Berchta) a goddess in Southern Germanaic paganism who is noted as a guardian of the beasts and is believed to be connected in folklore to Berchtold and set as the goddess of the Wild Hunt. Perchta mythology has her visiting people's homes during the midwinter, especially during Christmastime, to leave a silver coin had the children and young servants been good during the year, particularly the young girls, ensuring they had done all the spinning of their wool that year. (I assume a spool of wool was not something to be wasted.) In true Christmas folklore, Perchta would chastise those boys and girls who had been bad during the year by leaving them a lump of coal splitting open their gut, removing their innards and replacing them with straw and pebbles.

All from the one whose name means "the bright one."

Other traditions state that Perchta is angered when her feast is not celebrated with a meal of fish and gruel. She pretty much does the same thing to you if you've been bad if you forget to eat her traditional dish.

Perchta don't mess around.

So on this (non-canonical) feast day, in 2012, the residents of Switzerland get together to celebrate Berchtoldstag and do what? Spin fabric? Eat fish and gruel? Split each other open from gullet to groin to dance in each other's entrails?

They eat nuts.

The strange history of Berchtoldstag leads us to another popular story of the History of Switzerland that has cropped up on the internet as the reason for the celebration. If you perform a web search for Berchtoldstag you will find several websites that attribute the holiday to Duke Berchtold V. the founder of Bern, the capital of Switzerland. The holiday is not truly a celebration of Duke Berchtold according to some jerk on Wikipedia who keeps deleting entries that state the hoiday IS in honor of the founding of Bern without providing ANY proof of the contrary on the discussion page notable scholars, but popular legend, combined with a distance from once-common pagan folkore, have helped drive this belief into the minds of people who stopped reading the Wikipedia entry after the fourth word with more than three syllables in it.

So why nuts?

When Berchtold V established the city, he went out on a hunt promising to name the city after the first animal he came across and murderated the living crap out of. Legend has it that he returned from the hunt and named the city Bern, the German word for bear.

Yes, now, about the nuts...

Likely a convention of modern storytelling, internet rumor has it that Berchtold killed a squirrel on his hunt. His mediocre adventure in the wood then turned into a "big fish" tale that grew and grew until Mighty Berchtold emerged victorious against his trial with the bear.

So apparently the nuts are a tongue-in-cheek reference to the proud, strong name of Bern avoiding its luck of being called Squirrel-town.

Really?

Unlikely. Nuts are common food items in the winter because of their availability. They are likely no more important to the holiday than just the convenience of having them around. However it is reported that the locals play games with their nuts.

Games?

Yes. Apparently a very common game among children is to try to stack five nuts.

You've got to be kidding me.

No, really! It's harder than it sounds.

...

It is! Don't look at me like that. I'll prove it to you!




I started with Brazil nuts because I thought they would be easy to stack with their flat shape. I was wrong.



Success!



Pecans. They're round. This should be difficult.



Success!



Almonds. Deceptively flat. This might be interesting.



Success! Piece of cake.



Hazelnuts. There's no way this is possible. They're small, round, and smooth. It's impossible.



BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!



Walnuts? Are you kidding me? Walnuts? I got this.



Suc-wait. What? Let me do that again.




It's confirmed. It's impossible to stack five walnuts. I tried it more than twice, so that statement is fact.I know that if I need to stack any other nuts, that I can take the time to nail just about anything you throw at me.

Or if I'm lazy, I'll just stack them like these guys do.




In a tin.