As you finally get rid of them (Rid of them!)

It's the Ninth Day of Christmas, not the Second, but it's been about sixteen years since I last posted the lyrics to this Elvis Costello ditty (co-written with Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains), and it's been playing in my head a lot this holiday -- not that anyone got drunk, I hasten to add, and we finished the tourtières days ago:

I knew of two sisters whose name it was Christmas,

And one was named Dawn of course, the other one was named Eve.
I wonder if they grew up hating the season,
The good will that lasts til the Feast of St. Stephen

For that is the time to eat, drink, and be merry,
Til the beer is all spilled and the whiskey has flowed.
And the whole family tree you neglected to bury,
Are feeding their faces until they explode.

There'll be laughter and tears over Tia Marias,
Mixed up with that drink made from girders.
’Cause it's all we've got left as they draw their last breath,
Ah, it's nice for the kids, as you finally get rid of them,
In the St Stephen's Day Murders.

Uncle is garglin' a heart-breaking air,
While the babe in his arms pulls out all that remains of his hair.
And we're not drunk enough yet to dare criticise
The great big kipper tie he's about to baptise.

With his gin-flavoured whiskers and kisses of sherry,
His best Chrimbo shirt slung out over the shop.
While the lights from the Christmas tree blow up the telly,
His face closes in like an old cold pork chop.

And the carcass of the beast left over from the feast,
May still be found haunting the kitchen.
And there's life in it yet, we may live to regret,
When the ones that we poisoned stop twitchin'.

We'll have to muddle through somehow

Have you noticed how when people sing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" this year, they revert to the original lyrics?

Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow.  Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow...

Our Christmas Day may have been similar to other Christmas Days, but it's the line of days between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve that emphasize how this holiday season is like no other in peacetime.

I get poignant reminders, through my journals and via the FaceBook "On this date" feature, that our usual second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth days of Christmas were usually given to visiting and being visited, of seeing the movies most likely to be nominated for Academy Awards in the coming year, of making our annual trek to Butchart Gardens for the Christmas afternoon tea, even the occasional concert or play.

Yesterday, I had a series of tiny triumphs.  The current situation has slowed parcel delivery, so a handful of love offerings have not yet arrived, making the line of daily small gifts for the Twelve Days of Christmas rather sparse.  I grabbed a rare moment on my own to quickly hit a couple of downtown shops, and located a Doctor Who calendar for the Resident Fan Boy for the Eighth Day of Christmas, and a much-coveted video for younger daughter's Fifth Day of Christmas.  My finds were made all the sweeter, being from local businesses.

After lunch, we perused one of the sites for the annual Habitat for Humanity Gingerbread House contest.  Normally housed in a hotel lobby, they have been spread out to a number of different venues, where you view them through glass from the sidewalk.  A bit bleak, but better than nothing.

One of this year's candidates - yes, it's gingerbread

This morning, I awoke to "gremlins", resulting from a disturbing and accusatory dream of younger daughter's being back in school (thank god she isn't).  And as I lay there, fighting off the feelings of panic and failure, I also struggled with the recurring question that assails me every damn time:  Are these gremlins a delusion of the dark -- or an epiphany of waking clarity?  I fervently pray it's the latter.

Of course, then I checked my phone - big mistake - and encountered the doom-scroll of the situation in Britain, their hospitals with lines of ambulances outside, waiting for unavailable beds, and the country finally toppling into Brexit.  Of course, now elder daughter lives there.

Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight.  Because it will too dark to see them?

Leaving out the whistles and bells

This Twelfth Night, I look at a string of blue Tardises shining against the curtain, and our tree, gradually decorated by our daughters in the week leading up to Christmas.

The presents underneath have gradually disappeared; we opened the last gifts this evening.

Tomorrow, as was our tradition before leaving Victoria, and is becoming so again, a couple of long-time friends will come to dinner and help us put away the tree for another year. We may leave up the other lights until Candlemas.

This evening, enjoying the quiet glow for one last time, I stumbled across an old favourite song, by a group that takes its name from one of my favourite movies. The song is about another blue light, a canary-shaped nightlight which is and isn't your friend, and muses about a lighthouse, its ancient ancestor.

I'm your only friend
I'm not your only friend
But I'm a little glowing friend
But really I'm not actually your friend
But I am...

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch,
Who watches over you,
Make a little birdhouse in your soul.
Not to put too fine a point on it,
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet.
Make a little birdhouse in your soul.

I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well.
It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells,
So the room must listen to me,
Filibuster vigilantly.
My name is "blue canary", one note spelled l-i-t-e.
My story's infinite;
Like the Longines Symphonette, it doesn't rest.

There's a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry,
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free.
Though I respect that a lot,
I'd be fired if that were my job,
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts.
Bluebird of friendliness,
Like guardian angels, it's always near.

(And while you're at it,
Keep the nightlight on inside the
Birdhouse in your soul.)

There wasn't a readily available internet when this song was first popular, and in checking a few details, I discovered a cover in an equally quirky television series of the aughts, Pushing Daisies. This fan video captures a few seconds of it, along with a number of other old favourites sung by Kristin Chenoweth, who played a smitten pie-shop proprietor named Olive Snook in the show. Her singing partner for "Birdhouse in Your Soul" is none other than Ellen Greene, the original Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. (Their eye-patched driver is Swoosie Kurtz.)

"Candle on the Water", which we hear briefly later in the fan-vid, also has strong memories for me. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime. Maybe I already have...

Eating crow for Christmas

No one does a rant quite like David Mitchell, and we've been favoured with two Christmas rants this year. The first is as himself - or the grumpy public version of himself; I like to imagine that he is more cozy and affable in private with his wife and family.

The second is in his role as William Shakespeare in The Upstart Crow, a BBC comedy series which has been described as "Blackadderesque", mainly because it's written by Ben Elton, who also wrote Blackadder. It's witty, and more accurate than you might think.

However, I would like to point out a flaw in this latter rant. January 6th is Epiphany. Twelfth Night is actually January 5th. And today is the Fourth Day of Christmas, so make merry.

Tree rings

It's the third day of Christmas, and this post might be more appropriate for the fifth day of Christmas, but what the heck?

I was making my way home yesterday, and happened to glance to my left as I turned up Richmond Road for the zigzag that leads me to the crest of the hill where we are living. This minuscule tree, perhaps with pretensions of being a majestic evergreen someday, was festooned with four tiny plastic Christmas rings, rather than five gold ones.


(And yes, I know that "five golden rings" refer to a ring-necked pheasant - probably well-roasted.)

Mickle melody

I have memories of both this carol and of the King's Singers, but not together.  I've seen a number of concerts with the King's Singers, not in their most recent incarnation, and certainly not singing this.

The song is one I've also not heard in a long time, and mainly remember: There was mickle melody at that Childe's birth/ Although they were in Heaven's bliss, they maden mickle mirth. I sang it long ago with a small choir, a different setting than this, and certainly not as beautifully.  When I hear it, I see the dark streets of Toronto at Christmastime.

Merry Fourth Day of Christmas.

Merry Third Day of Christmas

We hope to get into the Museum of Civilization History to see an exhibit or two over the holidays - ask elder daughter for her rant on what she views as a tautology.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the nights of the twelve days of Christmas were much as this clever imagining of a Christmas night in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford?