Christmas in the park

Our mobile home park, that is. Every year, on the first Saturday of December, the park owners treat the residents and guests to a Christmas dinner. We start at 3 p.m. with drinks - alcoholic and otherwise - and socializing. Every year there is a small band that plays danceable music for old fogeys, though some of these old guys and gals are still pretty light on their feet.

This photo is just to give you an idea of the crowd we get. It is by far the best attended event of the year.

Then yesterday Cliff and I went to an event titled Christmas Pudding. It was a mix of Christmas songs, poems, and recitations of both the serious and comical variety (especially the one on how to make - hic! - Chrishmas Cookiesh whilst shampling the wishwhiskey to be surse ish of the highesht kwaltity, urp). It was most enjoyable. No, we didn’t shample the wishkoo.


Humor -

THE DRUNKEN DUCK
From “Firebird”
by Janice Graham

The following is taken from a novel, but has nothing to do with the story line. A gentleman comes to the Drunken Duck Inn in southern England. The driver who picks him up at the train station tells the gentleman how the inn came to have its name.

“It had come by its name when Victoria was on the throne, when the landlady had opened her door one Christmas morning and found three ducks lying dead on her doorstep. She thought it provident and awoke her young daughters to help her pluck the ducks for a grand Christmas dinner. The creatures were almost plucked bare when one of the ducks lifted its head and, in a swift retaliatory blow, bit the younger daughter on the wrist. Terrified, the little girl flung the duck into the air, and it came down, featherless and infuriated, into the arms of her mother. It seems the ducks had wandered into a pool of beer leaked from a broken barrel and they had paddled and drunk their way to near death. Once she got over her disappointment at not having roast duck for Christmas, the landlady, distressed at the sight of the naked ducks, set about knitting sweaters for them until their plumage grew back. The ducks enjoyed immunity after the incident, and died of old age.”