when does the official 12 days of christmas start
The twelve days in the song are the twelve days starting with Christmas Day, or in some traditions, the day after Christmas (26 December) (Boxing Day or St. Stephen's Day, as being the feast day of St. Stephen Protomartyr), to the day before Epiphany, or the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January, or the Twelfth Day). Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking."