The Twelve Days of Christmas, also known as the Twelve Days of Christmastide, are the festive Christian season celebrating the Nativity.
The Adoration of the Magi, Fresco at the Lower Church of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi in Assisi, Italy
Russian icon of the Theophany
Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) by David Teniers c. 1634–1640
Twelfth Night costumers in New Orleans
The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is documented in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judaea, that his mother, Mary, was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was descended from King David and was not his biological father, and that his birth was caused by divine intervention. Some scholars do not see the two canonical gospel nativity stories as historically factual since they present clashing accounts and irreconcilable genealogies. The secular history of the time does not synchronize with the narratives of the birth and early childhood of Jesus in the two gospels. Some view the question of historicity as secondary, given that gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than chronological timelines.
Adoration of the Shepherds by Dutch painter Matthias Stomer, 1632
A page from the 11th-century Bamberg Apocalypse showing Matthew 1:21
Angel Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary, by Murillo, c. 1660
Altar in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem