Is there anyone here called Carol?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Soon the bells will start
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.

Yes, yes it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I love it!

I’m trilling carols every chance I get, although I do admit to often mishearing the lyrics. It’s a common problem, I know of people who are convinced Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer also mentions “Olive, the other reindeer…”

I didn’t so much suffer from a misheard lyric this week when I was trying to name all of Santa’s reindeer, but I did become a bit confused by rhythm and alliteration. I always have trouble remembering them, I get to Dasher and Dancer and then I get confused with Snow White’s dwarfs, throwing in Sleepy and Sneezie.

I was trying really hard to recite the reindeer from memory and was so excited when I recited eight names: Dasher, Dancer, Comet and Vixen, Cupid and Stupid and Vomit and Blitzen!

Thank goodness for Facebook and my friend Angel (so appropriate for this time of year!) who taught me the real names, “Now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen! On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!"

She also researched the names and found out Donner and Blitzen are variants of the original names "Dunder" and "Blixem", meaning thunder and lightening. She did like poor old Vomit the Reindeer though and thought he was probably the one who imbibed too deeply of the eggnog and missed the Christmas run.

Fortunately there was no thunder and lightening around tonight as I attended the annual Carols in the Cul De Sak. It’s an annual event put on by the Salvation Army in my neighborhood. It’s local and friendly and absolutely delightful. Mum and I found it by chance four years ago and now we go every year.

The light rain didn’t dampen any spirits this year either. The songbook had a lovely message of joy, love and peace. The rain tonight is as much part of that for me tonight. I’ve spent a lot of my life in severe droughts and I still remember that rain was the only present my father, a farmer, wished for. It meant life for his livestock and crops.

So sitting in the rain tonight I was very thankful.

I am thankful for so many things, my family and friends all around the world, my imagination and of course a little white dog, even when she’s sniffing out her present under the tree!

Merry Christmas one and all!