Why were there 12 days?  Why not 13 or 15?  What is the significance of 12 days? 

Obviously I am not the first to wonder about this as there are a number of sites dealing with this very issue.  Most of these sites agree that the 12 days have a significance in the Christian calendar and  that each of the gifts are Christian symbols. 

I am more interested in the numerical value chosen. The 12 days after Christmas to Ephiphany are meaningul in the church calendar.  But that doesn't explain why they became the 12 days before Christmas in the song. 

It turns out that 12 is an "abundant" number in mathematics.  That means if you add 12 to the sum of its other divisors, 1,2,3,4 and 6, the result is more than 2 X 12. 

I can picture an early mathematician creating the "12 days of Christmas" song to teach his math students more about abundance using the first abundant number, 12,  as his starting point. 

Now you've got something really interesting to talk about over that next glass of eggnog.

That's the price you will pay to buy a $25 roll of US presidential coins from the US Mint.  That's right.  The mint makes a $10 profit on each roll of 25 of these $1 coins that are actually in circulation. 

How do I know this you might wonder?  Well, I am one of the few people who is actually dumb enough to pay that price to get these coins.  There are four of these  in circulation for 2007: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. The banks don't seem to carry them at all. They might be able to find you a roll of re-circulated coins if you time it just right.  But I like to have the shiny new gold variety, with a single president represented.  So I go straight to the mint and order them online. 

I think this is a wonderful way to get children to learn the Presidents of the United States in order.  If they get it right, they can earn the appropriate coin. At least now I know the first 4 presidents in the right order.  It's going to take me a long time to get through the whole list at the rate of 4 new coins issued per year, but that's okay.  I'll get there eventually. 

And in the meantime, the US postal service stamp machines are actually providing these coins as change, so you might luck out and get your Washington dollar for a dollar.  As for me, each dollar of mine is actually a $1.43 gold piece.  That just makes them more special when I give them away.