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Today is Nollaig na mBan: Women's Little Christmas; Small Christmas. A litany of names for the sixth of January - the last of the 12 days of Christmas and the day on which the Three Wise Men are supposed to appear for the first time in the Crib. They rarely do of course, since January 6th is also traditionally the day the decorations finally come down.

Kevin Danaher's classic text The Year In Ireland: A Calendar has a short entry on the date. He suggests that the name "Women's Christmas" is explained by "the assertion that Christmas Day was marked by beef, and whiskey, men's fare, while on Little Christmas Day the dainties preferred by women - cake, tea, wine, were more in evidence". It's a custom which seems to have been passed on orally and informally, drifting down like feathers from one generation to the next. Few women spoken to for this article had read anything about Nollaig na mBan, but all had heard about it from other women or female family members - grandmothers, mothers, aunts.