“It Starts on the 25th” — Anglican Christian Says We’ve Been Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas Wrong

Contra Tenore (@cntrtnr) is sticking to his holiday season guns and has uploaded yet another video during yet another Yuletide season to let people know that they are probably celebrating the 12 days of Christmas wrong.

In his viral clip titled, "We're doing Christmas wrong!!!" that's accrued 183,000 views, Contra says that the 12 Days of Christmas are actually supposed to begin on December 25th and then end on January 6th. He also slammed how consumerism has turned the holiday in an end-of-the-year shopping extravaganza that begins right when Halloween is over and urged folks to go back to the way the 12 Days of Christmas are, as he says, supposed to be celebrated.

"I'm not like a tried Cath weirdo or anything but, Capitalism has really messed up Christmas. Like I was brought up Anglican, so right now it's Advent and so it's really weird for me and kind of doesn't feel right to be listening to Christmas music but like literally after the 25th, it's like Christmas is done, it's over."

He continued, "When in fact it starts on the 25th and lasts till January 6th then epiphany." The epiphany that he's referring to is the day that the three wise men, who, led by a star that foretold of the messiah's birth, visited baby Jesus 12 days after his birth and gave him three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Contra went on to say that he's noticed folks were surprised to learn this information so he's decided to make it an annual tradition where he divulges this advent knowledge on his followers: "I did this TikTok last year, I'm gonna do it every single year because I think it's worth saying, like that is the way to do Christmas."

The TikToker said that the "way we do" Christmas currently is all wrong, as per old school Christian traditions. "Which is everyone runs around like chicken with their heads cut off. They get a tree in like, November, and then literally everything gets thrown to the curb on December 26th and people go around on this sort of...stupor, between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve."

Contra even highlighted popular films as, stating that the real "spirit of Christmas" has been hiding beneath our nose, at least when it comes to traditions, this whole time: "Like if you look at old movies, people would put up Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. Like, It's a Wonderful Life, The Bishop's Wife, the Christmas tree is literally being decorated on Christmas Eve."

He says that this is the case "because it stays up...for the 12 days of Christmas. Anyways, I'm begging you...I just want cultural shift here...like, break out the Christmas carols and the Christmas music, it should last the 12 days of Christmas, not this thing where it's like blasting in malls starting on November 1st for two months and then, December 26th you just care about Boxing Day sales."

He ended his video with a declaration: "F--- capitalism, f--- those people, f--- the malls, f--- Amazon, f--- 'em all, celebrate Christmas the right w-" the clip then cuts out as he speaks into the camera.

There were several users who responded to his video who agreed with his exhortation: there were throngs of people who wished that the 12 Days of Christmas were practiced the same way in which Contra described in his video. One TikToker penned: "The 12 days of Christmas originally started on Christmas!!! I wish we still did it this way lol"

Another confirmed what Contra said, writing: "people think the 12 days of Christmas is the 12 days before but it's actually after."

There was one user who said that the new set up was actually a revelation for them, writing that their seasonal depression would probably be ameliorated by this new celebration timeline.

"As someone who gets hit HARD by immediate post-Christmas sads around noon on 12/25…I think you just changed everything for me," they said.

It seemed that someone else agreed, as they wrote: "This is way better because I hate the emotional slump the day after Christmas. Its all this planning and then it's just over."

And depending on which denomination of Christianity that one practices, Christmas falls on different days, like this one person who wrote: "I'm Armenian Apostolic... Jan 6 is Christmas...so, I'll be continuing doing Christmasy stuff all 12 days of Christmas, too"

There was one TikToker who seemed to take issue with Contra's diatribe against the long-form-Christmas-begins-in-November-for-Capitalism-purposes take, stating that their holiday season starts early and ends late, taking every bit that they can get: "I’m a day after thanksgiving till January 6th person. Giving me the fulll experience please"

How do you feel about the OG way that the 12 Days of Christmas were celebrated? If you do celebrate Christmas, have you been doing it this way this whole time? Are you going to adjust it to the way Contra has laid out in his video moving forward? Or do you not think it's an issue that traditions change over time and think this is the natural progression of how Christmas should be celebrated?