Christmas 2007

So, we are all getting ready for Christmas here. The coop is adorned with lights, boughs and bows.

We had to take the tinsel down because Erica kept pulling at it, and it kept getting caught in her throat. The other chickens were panicked, because if I were not around, they couldn’t get their wings around her to apply the Heimlich Maneuver. And believe me, mouth to beak resuscitation is not a pretty sight.

But Erica is no worse for the wear and has been put in charge of coloring the Christmas Eggs (I know - you are thinking wrong holiday, but we color eggs for EVERY holiday around here).

Truman won’t take the Santa hat off and share, so everyone else has taken to calling him “The Grinch.” He retorts by calling them “Stupid Who’s from Whoville.” Kinda ruins the Peace on Earth thing, but I think the stress of the season has gotten to poor Truman.

He’ll come around. Christmas Eve is special and we all look forward to it.

Everyone gets pajamas on and nestles into bed with warm milk and animal crackers, (except Karin who insists on dressing to the nines and flipping her boa around. Annoys everyone and makes me sneeze).

Bart gets to read the perennial favorite “How the Chickens Saved Christmas”, where Santa stops at Taco Bell to get some snacks for the reindeer and they all get food poisoning. Rudolph and the rest are puking on the orange and green tables and Santa is in tears, knowing he will have to cancel Christmas.

But wait! Santa hears the sleigh bells jingling! Five chickens have walked up through the drive thru and are donning the harnesses! Santa can fly again and the kids will get their gifts! Christmas will go on after all!!!!!!!!!

Santa pays for the check, and as the reindeer are all downing Pepto Bismol and groaning, you can hear Santa’s voice fading as he drives out of sight, singing “On Bart, On Truman, On Erica, On Karin, On Kim, the magic of Christmas starts with a Chicken!”

This is where we throw all the pillows up in the air and cheer (Truman tries to hide it, but we have seen the tear trickling down his feathered face).

Kim usually falls asleep before the end of the story and is all *ss and feathers when we cheer. She insists she was just resting her eyes – but we know better ;-)

I am between jobs and am enjoying the time off, and the holidays in general. Spent last weekend in NYC to see the lights and sights with some friends in from London. A beautiful day walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, riding the subways, and a wicked good dinner in Park Slope.

I was coming home on the train from New York, listening to Leonard Cohen’s “Song of Bernadette” and was struck, as I always am, by the lyrics. Thinking about the season, I constructed the following around his words.

Here is my Christmas Card to You:

This season is one of purity – of light, of birth, of youth, of hope - even the harsh beauty of the cold -and simple acts of faith.

After the raw potential of our youth, we all contemplate the chill, the waning of our years, torn by the things we have done, haven’t done, and can’t undo. We’ve all been around and fall: we hope to fly - we mostly run.

But when we stop and believe in angels and ourselves and the gifts we have, then every now and then we can mend the damage that we’ve done and transcend.

This is the season that reaches out to hearts like yours and mine. So let us hold each other in light, to heal the sorrows of the year and touch another to release the grace that is in each of us.

A new year beckons. Another chance.

This, then, is mercy.

gm

P.S.  I want to point out I had a wonderful editor on this. She is neither a nitwit nor a misfit. Thanks K.