Today’s gift count (120 gifts): you currently have Eight young woman engaged in the dairy industry,
14 Swans making a racket, 18 geese a’ laying (fertilized goose eggs are going for about $82 per dozen), 20 golden rings, 20 calling birds, 18 French hens, 14 turtledoves and 8 partridges in their respective pear trees.
The Eight maids a milking symbolize the eight beatitudes (from Jesus‘ Sermon on the Mount).
Remember to think kindly of women who work in the dairy industry – if it weren’t for the unnatural interest Edward Jenner took in milk maids, we would never have the smallpox vaccine.
Today is also The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ – a Christian celebration of the circumcision of Jesus, eight days (according to the Semitic and southern European calculation of intervals of days) after his birth,
the occasion went well, and the child was formally given his name, Jesus, a name derived from Hebrew meaning salvation or savior.
The Haus of Dcaligari 