“On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Six Geese A-Laying.” I don’t mind six geese if they aren’t pooping on my lawn (which they seem to do once they stand up and aren’t laying anymore) and so I much rather see them swimming or playing on a lake and not near my pond.
“On the Fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me Five Golden Rings.” Since I don’t wear much jewelry, instead of golden rings I would like to see golden flowers like sunflowers. The birds would like more sunflower seeds on this -11ºF morning so it would be better to have rings of yellow petals around the sunflower seed head. The sun even had a ring around it yesterday from the ice crystals in the air so memories of a warmer day is preferred.
“On the Fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Four Calling Birds”. I wouldn’t want four calling birds in the house but I would like hearing some of the songs of the spring birds, but that won’t happen for a while as winter only officially started a week ago. Even the noisy barn swallows, like these four birds, would be a welcome sound over the squeaky snow under my feet as it is -5ºF this morning.
“On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to me Three French Hens”. Since I can’t speak French, I rather have three laying hens than three French hens.
“On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to me Two Turtle Doves”, which might be a little hard since turtle doves aren’t native to North America and even two turtles would be hard to find since they are hibernating on a wintry day.
“On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree.”
Well the song lyrics just don’t work for me since I don’t have a true love, the coyote ate the partridge and it has to be a very hardy pear tree to survive in my area and it would be a bare tree this time of year.
When I was in grade school, it was our job to cut the Christmas from our planting of pine trees for a windbreak the first day school let out fro Christmas break. But since it was a windbreak, we could only take a tree where the trees were too thick so that meant a ‘Charlie Brown’ type of tree, which was usually flat on one side. The Charlie Brown tree did work well in a small room since the flat side could be pushed tight to the wall. One problem with the tree was that it would always grow after we cut it by the time we got to the house door!
This leaning tree might have fit into the Charlie Brown category since the deer rubbed off several rows of branches, although the gap is covered with the heavy snow laden branches, but since the tree was on the end of the row, it would have been safe from being a Christmas tree.
No clear, sunny sky for this Christmas Eve Day but then I suppose that means it won’t be real cold tonight for Santa’s reindeer but if Santa can bring the sun for our present, I think a lot of people would be happy.
Old Man Winter must be confused with all the cloudy weather we have been having since now that it is officially winter, it is raining and melting the snow away. But it sounds like the snow will return soon enough, but in the mean time, I will dream of a warmer fall day on the banks of the stream in Houghton Falls State Nature Area.