On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me, a partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmas…   Let's take a pause there. We all know this song, it has stayed with us for as long as Boney M.'s “Mary's Boy Child”. The first day marks the beginning of the Twelve Days of Christmas, a festive Christian season that starts on Christmas Day and ends on 5 January, the day before the Epiphany.