five GOLDEN riiiiiiiiiinnngs!

OK, so everyone seems to be complaining about the fact that Christmas decorations were up by Halloween this year, and many a store and radio are playing Christmas songs ad naseuam. I fully agree with this reaction to the early start of the season; I really and truly do like Christmas music... but only in small doses. Two months of it is too much of it.

That said, the worst offender amongst Christmas songs? The Twelve Days of Christmas. Hands down. Partly because, as Eddie Izzard so aptly puts it, no one ever remembers all of the gifts therein, and start making up crazy ones ([to the tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas"] 12 monkeys mating, 11 donkeys dancing, 10 pygmies farming, 9 socks a-swimming, 5 gold rings..."). Everyone gets the five golden rings, though...

I heard the song playing in a store the day after Halloween (best time to buy snack sized Snickers ever) and got it stuck in my head. I've been humming it non stop for weeks now. And a couple of days ago, while primping in front of the mirror at home, I busted out with "five GOLDEN riiiinnnnngs!!!" It was really quite unexpected, even to me. My roommate, Sarah, screamed, "Aaaaaaggggh!" from the other room, and told me to stop singing immediately. But, alas, it was too late. I'd lodged it firmly in her brain, as well. We spent the next hour or so arguing about the 12 gifts of each day before looking them up on Google. And now, every time I see her, I start singing a line from the song, and she glares at me.

One more memory of this ridiculous song comes to mind. This memory involves Moraima, another roommate of mine in the six months we lived in London (poor girl :). She and I share a love of literature, but especially Jane Austen, and we both were keen to visit the house where the author had written Pride and Prejudice. We took a cold, wintery day to travel south by train to the small town of Winchester, its chapel being Austen's final resting place. From there, we took a local bus to the even smaller village of Chawton. After a formal tea at the one small cafe (next to the post office and liquor store- the only three businesses of Chawton), we delighted ourselves in the museum inside Austen's old home. The time we spent in the gardens was what made us late to the bus stop, though, and we knew that the bus did not come too regularly. Mo and I spent the next hour and a half jumping up and down, blowing on our hands, and singing Christmas carols while we waited. I will never forget our crazy rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas, Jane Austen style (We did make it home without frost bite, btw. Thanks for your concern.)

And for your reference when you can't stop singing the song either:
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five GOLDEN riiiiiiiiiinnngs,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!