how many presents on the 12 days of christmas

There are 12 presents in the song, one for each day of the Christmas season. However, the song is actually based on an old French carol, which has 24 days in the celebration, and 24 presents in the song. The modern version of the song was shortened to 12 days because of the difficulty of finding enough gifts to fill 24 days. So, the 12 days of Christmas is actually a shortened version of the original song.