I have always found it curious that the playing and singing of Christmas songs stops the day after Christmas. That may be understandable with popular songs, since they are generally anticipatory -- hoping you have yourself a merry little Christmas, or a white Christmas, or you avoid a blue Christmas, or that you get your two front teeth for Christmas, or that Santa Claus is coming right down Santa-Claus Lane.
Traditional Christmas carols, on the other hand, are all about glory to the new-born king, indicating that the anticipated event has already occurred. For weeks and months up to and including December 25, we hear that baby Jesus is away in a manger with no crib for his bed, and that three kings and a drummer boy come to visit him, but once the day of his birth actually comes, that's it -- no more songs about it.
We hear tell (ad nauseum) of the strange and wonderful gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas before Christmas comes, but thereafter we don't hear that song even once during Christmastide. Today is only the ninth* of the twelve days of Christmas, so why are we not still hearing those carols that admonish all ye faithful to come to Bethlehem and behold him?
Never mind the five gold rings or the partridge in a pear tree. Bring on the nine ladies dancing.
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*Or the tenth, depending on which Christian calendar you follow.
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