HORSEY CHRISTMAS

HORSEY CHRISTMAS

 

       Horses have a hard time of it around Christmas. They have no place in The Story: Mary rides a donkey, the Wise Men come on camels. They figure into some of the Holiday Season music, but mostly in songs about sleighrides, and in those stories mostly as objects of abuse. “Bells on Bobtail ring, making spirits bright./ What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight!” Ever had the fun of explaining “bobtails” to a three-year-old? Then there’s the one in which “The horse was lean and lank/ Misfortune was his lot,” and they crash into a snowbank. Store muzak plays the instrumental version of “The Horsewhipping Carol,” otherwise known as “Sleighride Together for Two,” in which the events of a per (whack) fect day are punctuated by the sound of the driver’s whip. At least the poor things are held in higher esteem at Thanksgiving: “The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh/ Through the white and drifted snow.”

       CARRY the sleigh?

Comments

[stove pipe]

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