Notes From All Over -- 2nd Day Of Christmas -- December 27, 2020

Santa Claus rally: last five days of December and first two days of January. 

The twelve days of Christmas, from wiki, December 25 - January 5, inclusive.

In 567, the Council of Tours "proclaimed the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany as a sacred and festive season, and established the duty of Advent fasting in preparation for the feast." 

Christopher Hill, as well as William J. Federer, states that this was done in order to solve the "administrative problem for the Roman Empire as it tried to coordinate the solar Julian calendar with the lunar calendars of its provinces in the east."

Epiphany - Three Kings' Day: everything is variable --

• traditionally: January 6
• often: the first Sunday after January 1
• Epiphany Eve, eve of Epiphany: Twelfth Night
• and, yes, Shakespeare's eponymously-named play

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Santa Claus Rally

Retail sales: up 3% this holiday season.

• MasterCard data posted December 26, 2020;
• e-commerce sales jumped almost 50% year-over-year;
• e-commerce made up almost 20% of total retail sales;
• number of people shopping online estimated to have jumped 44%;
• home furniture and furnishings jumping 16%;
• holiday season this year was expanded from October 11, 2020, to December 24, 2020;
• expanded due to fact that many brick-and-mortar stores faced Fauci-capacity restraints;

Recession: if I recall, "traditional" definition required two quarters of negative GDP growth.