The seventeenth day before Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas recordings is "Now it is Christmas Again" by Garrison Keillor.  The title comes from a traditional Swedish Christmas song, "Nu är det jul igen."  There's also a painting of the same name by Carl Larsson, a Swedish artist.

The song itself goes like this:

Nu är jul igen

och nu är jul igen,

och julen vara skall till påska.

Så är det påsk igen

och så är det påsk igen

och påsken vara skall till jul'a.

Det var inte sant'

och det var inte sant

för däremellan kommer fasta.

Frankly, it sounds more impressive in Swedish.  Here's a translation:

Now it's Yule again,
And now it's Yule again,
And Yule will last until Easter:

Then it's Easter again,
And then it's Easter again,
And Easter lasts until Yule.

That's not true
And that's not true
For in between comes fasting.

To go along with that profound description of the Christmas season, here's a lovely arrangement of the song being performed at a St. Lucia's Day celebration.