Memorize The Twelve Days of Christmas Lyrics
The Twelve Days of Christmas is a popular Christmas carol that has been sung for centuries. The song begins with “On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…” and continues through twelve days, each with its own unique gift.
Each verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas adds one new gift and then repeats every gift that came before it, so the twelfth verse lists all twelve. That makes it a memory test as much as a carol, and it began as one. Early accounts describe it as a memory-and-forfeits game, in which each player had to repeat the verses in turn and anyone who slipped paid a forfeit.
Below are the full lyrics, followed by a simple way to memorize them with a peg list and one picture for each day’s gift.
The Twelve Days of Christmas Lyrics
These are the words most people sing today, from the arrangement Frederic Austin published in 1909. The song itself is much older. Its words were first printed in a London children’s book, Mirth without Mischief, around 1780.
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Many people in North America sing “my true love gave to me” instead of “sent to me”. Both are common, so sing whichever one you grew up with.
How to Memorize the Twelve Days of Christmas
The song looks long, but there are only twelve things to learn. Every verse is the same opening line followed by the gifts counted back down to the partridge. If you know which gift belongs to which day, you can sing any verse by starting at that day and counting backward.
That makes it easy to memorize with a peg list: twelve numbered pegs, with one gift associated with each peg.
Step 1: Give Each Number a Picture
Use the number shape system, where each number becomes something that looks like it. One is a candle, four is a sailboat, eight is a snowman, and so on. For ten, eleven and twelve, picture the two digits together as one thing. The Shaper System has ideas for every number up to 99.
Step 2: Link Each Gift to Its Peg
Make one picture that joins each peg to its gift. The sillier and more vivid the picture is, the better it sticks, so add movement, sound and exaggeration. Here is one set of mnemonic images to start from, although the pictures you invent yourself will work better.
| Day | Peg | Gift | Picture |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Candle | A partridge in a pear tree | A pear tree with a giant candle burning at the top, and a partridge warming itself by the flame |
| 2 | Coat hanger | Two turtle doves | Two doves perched on a coat hanger, cooing at each other |
| 3 | Butterfly | Three French hens | Three hens in berets chasing a giant butterfly |
| 4 | Sailboat | Four calling birds | Four birds on a sailboat, each one shouting into a telephone |
| 5 | Hook | Five gold rings | Five gold rings caught on a fishing hook and pulled out of the sea |
| 6 | Golf club | Six geese a-laying | Six geese laying eggs while a golfer tees off with each new one |
| 7 | Boomerang | Seven swans a-swimming | Seven swans ducking as a boomerang skims across their lake |
| 8 | Snowman | Eight maids a-milking | Eight milkmaids milking a snowman that gives ice cream instead of milk |
| 9 | Balloon | Nine ladies dancing | Nine ladies dancing as they float into the sky, each holding a balloon |
| 10 | Bat and ball | Ten lords a-leaping | Ten lords in long robes leaping to catch a ball hit with a bat |
| 11 | Chopsticks | Eleven pipers piping | Eleven pipers piping on chopsticks instead of pipes |
| 12 | Slide | Twelve drummers drumming | Twelve drummers whizzing down a playground slide, drumming all the way |
Two usually looks like a swan, but the swans are the seventh gift, so two becomes a coat hanger, which has the same curve on top and the same flat line along the bottom. Ten is a bat standing beside a ball. Eleven is a pair of chopsticks held upright. Twelve is a playground slide, with the ladder for the 1 and the curve of the slide for the 2. A peg list works best when no two pictures can be confused.
Step 3: Sing Each Verse by Counting Down
To sing a verse, start at that day’s peg and walk back down to one. For the fifth verse you see the hook pulling up gold rings, then the sailboat full of calling birds, the butterfly fleeing the French hens, the doves on the coat hanger, and the candle at the top of the pear tree. Every verse runs in the same order, so you are only ever reading the same list from a different starting point.
Test yourself by picking a day at random and singing that verse. When you can do it for every day, you know the song.
Or Use a Memory Palace
If you already have a memory palace, you can use twelve places along its route instead of the pegs. Put the partridge at the first place, the doves at the second, and so on. Each verse is then a walk back from that day’s place to the start.
The Parts That Trip People Up
Most mistakes happen in the last four days, partly because older versions of the song put them in a different order. In Austin’s version the dancers and the leapers come before the band. The nine ladies dance and the ten lords leap, and only then do the eleven pipers and the twelve drummers play.
The other common slip is the fourth gift. Austin wrote “four calling birds”, but the words printed in 1780 have “colly birds”, from an old word meaning black as coal, and you will still hear that version sung.
If you add up every gift in every verse, the true love sends 364 of them, one for nearly every day of the year. The twelve days themselves are the days of the Christmas season, which begins on Christmas Day and ends at Twelfth Night in early January.
More Christmas Poems to Learn
Once you know the song, try a poem. A Visit from St. Nicholas, the one that begins “’Twas the night before Christmas”, has 56 lines in rhyming couplets, and In the Bleak Midwinter has five short stanzas. You can find both in the Christmas section of our poems page.
For more on learning verse, read how to memorize poetry, or practice a poem word by word in Poem Climber. You can also ask questions or share your own pictures in our memory forum.
