Everyone who gets email gets SPAM, but I don't know how many of my readers get bogus Christmas emails like this:

The Story of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" the Christmas Carol

There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me.

What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?

>From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church.

Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality, which the children could remember.

The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

Two turtledoves were the Old and New Testaments.

Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.

The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history for today. This knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening and now I know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol...

So is this poignant "Candy Cane" story:

The candymaker made the candy in the form of a "J" to represent the precious name of Jesus, who came to earth as our Savior. It could also represent the staff of the "Good Shepherd" with which He reaches down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like all sheep, have gone astray.

Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candymaker stained it with red stripes. He used three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.

And then some smartass (like me) comes along and spoils it for them by saying something like, "Aunt Martha, you're a chump! It's all an urban legend!"

I feel about an inch away from being the Grinch, and I don't like it. It's almost like telling a small child that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny! No tooth fairy?

It's cruel, and whatever people might think of my ideas, I don't like being cruel -- especially to people who were kind enough to pass along something they thought was nice.

But how far does this go?

Santa Claus is one thing, but should children be taught outright lies about the founding fathers? A lie about a nonexistent cherry tree (no matter how many cherry trees were given to the District of Columbia by the Japanese in 1912) -- in the name of imparting "honesty"?

How about teaching people lies about their history to improve their self esteem?

Not sure I have the answers, and I am not sure at what point too much honesty becomes brutality.

I guess this is why the "white lie" was invented.

This isn't the first time I've complained about mythology, and it won't be the last. As someone who loves the classics, I have no objection to mythology, mind you.

I'm just not comfortable seeing it packaged as truth.

And I am even less comfortable seeing mythology bought as truth by people who should know better. (But who should know better, and who shouldn't -- that's the $64.00 -- no, the $64,000 -- question.)