Just got a message from my friend Mona Petten in Port de Grave. She writes, "It irks me when I hear the media refer to Jan.6 as Old Christmas Day. My Grandmother was adamant that it was Jan.5. Have you done any research on this?" - Well! Read on!

It depends when you start counting Christmastide. For some, Christmas is the start of the 12 days of Christmas, which means Jan. 5th is Twelfth Night. If you count from the day AFTER Christmas (St. Stephen's Day), it is Jan 6th...

Jan 6th is the Feast of the Epiphany, so the 5th can be either Old Christmas, Old Christmas Eve, or Eve of the Ephiphany. Church of England celebrates Twelfth Night on the 5th...

In some places, particularly southwest England, Old Twelfth Night is still celebrated on 17 January, because of changes to the Julian calendar! So basically, it is Christmas for as long (or as short) as you want.

If you are Ukrainian, Christmas Eve is the 6th!
In Labrador, the 6th is also Nalujuk Night!

Just one more thing: in Newfoundland, mummers and janeys *generally* (but not always) went mummering the 12 days of Christmas, but wouldn't go out on Christmas Day because that day was holy. So in some communities, the last day of mummering would be Jan 6th

In other communities it started as early as October and went as late as February, so if they did it differently in your town, you are part of a complex tradition that was celebrated in many different ways!

Bonus tweet:
If you missed Clifford George's story about animals talking on Old Christmas Eve, you can listen here: https://twitter.com/DaleJarvis/status/1346457653858414598?s=20