Twelfth Night

What it is

Twelfth Night is a Christian festival, and in some places it carries the name Epiphany Eve. It marks the close of Christmastide and the approach of Epiphany, the feast kept on 6 January that begins the season called Epiphanytide. Christians observe it, and so do many people in countries with a Christian cultural background, even when they are not churchgoers. An old superstition in English-speaking places holds that taking Christmas decorations down too early, or leaving them up too long, brings bad luck, so Twelfth Night has become the usual moment to pack them away.

Origins and history

The season took its shape in AD 567, when the Council of Tours declared the period running from Christmas to Epiphany a holy and joyful one. Christopher Hill and William J. Federer read a practical motive into this: the Roman Empire needed a way to line up its sun-based calendar with the moon-based calendars used in eastern provinces. In medieval and Tudor England, Candlemas was the day that closed the Christmas season. Only later did Twelfth Night take over that role, leaving Epiphanytide to run until Candlemas. A much-loved custom of the night was to bake a bean and a pea into a cake: the man who found the bean ruled as King for the evening, the woman who found the pea as Queen.

How it is kept

The evening is a sociable one. Households gather for parties, sing carols, and some attend a church service. A chalk mark is drawn on the door, or a priest blesses the home, asking protection for the year ahead. In London the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, has given its company cake and punch on 6 January since 1795, paid for by a bequest in the will of the actor Robert Baddeley; the custom has survived more than two centuries, missed only in a few years of war, closure or pandemic. In Ireland many families wait until Twelfth Night, or the next day, to set the figures of the Three Kings in the crib.

Food and drink

Cake and punch carry much of the night's meaning. Wassail, a spiced punch, is drunk at Christmas and especially on Twelfth Night, mostly in Britain, where groups once went from door to door with a bowl and sang to the orchards. Special pastries are baked for the occasion, among them the tortell and the king cake, and they are often eaten the following day at Epiphany. France keeps the month with la galette des rois, the Kings' Cake: in the north it is a flat pastry filled with frangipane, fruit or chocolate, while southern bakers make a brioche studded with candied fruit. The poet Robert Herrick, writing in 1648, described a wassail bowl of lamb's-wool, a warm drink of ale, sugar, nutmeg and ginger.

Around the world

Spain calls the evening víspera de Reyes, Kings' Eve, and in past centuries costumed kings walked through the towns giving out sweets. In the Netherlands the night grew so loud and unruly, and so far from its church roots, that the Church banned public celebrations. Some parts of England's West Country still keep Old Twelfth Night, or Old Twelvey, on 17 January, the date that matched 6 January under the old calendar replaced by the Calendar Act of 1750; there the apple wassail is sung to the trees. In the United States, Carnival in New Orleans and Mobile begins from this night, and king cake parties once ran weekly, with whoever found the hidden baby hosting the next one.

How Twelfth Night is kept

Anyone can join in, and the shape of the evening varies. A household may start with a church service, then sit down to a party or a feast. Carols are sung, and a cake is cut; in older games the bean and the pea inside decide who is King and Queen for the night. Some mark the door with chalk or ask a blessing on the house. A bowl of wassail goes round. In orchard country, singers carry it out to the apple trees. The evening ends late, with the decorations taken down and the Christmas season formally over.

When and where

Twelfth Night falls on 5 or 6 January. Which one depends on when the counting starts: with Christmas Day itself, or with 26 December. Churches that count only whole days may place the night on 6 January, the same evening as Epiphany. A few places keep Old Twelfth Night on 17 January, the date that once lined up with Epiphany.

Britain and Ireland keep it most visibly, with church services, wassail and cake. Spain, France and the Netherlands each gave the night their own character, and the custom travelled with French settlers to the southern United States, where New Orleans and Mobile open Carnival from it. In England's West Country the old date of 17 January still stands.

What Twelfth Night means

For Christians the night stands between two moments of the Christmas story: the birth, kept on 25 December, and the visit of the wise men, kept on 6 January. The bean and the pea turn an ordinary cake into a small coronation, letting a household play at royalty for a few hours. Blessing a house or chalking a door asks for safety in the year to come. For many people who are not churchgoers, the night is the last chance to enjoy the tree, the carols and the company before ordinary life returns.

On the table

Flavours: Nutmeg and mace Ginger

Days Twelfth Night is marked

Questions people ask about Twelfth Night

See also

CandlemasA Christian feast of candle blessings marking the end of the Christmas seasonSweat lodgeA purification ceremony kept by Indigenous peoples of the Americas using a heated hut and steam.BotafumeiroA giant swinging censer of brass and silver that fills the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral with incense during solemn fPresentation of Jesus at the TempleA February feast of candles and welcome, kept forty days after Christmas

Good reading and sources

• 'Tis the season | Adam FoxThe Guardian, Article
• Epiphany: Should Christmas decorations come down on 6 January?BBC, Article
• 'Tis the season | Adam FoxThe Guardian, Article
• Epiphany: Should Christmas decorations come down on 6 January?BBC, Article

• Twelfth Night (holiday) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.