"From a commercial point of view, if Christmas in the village didn't exist, we'd have to invent it….ooh, wait a minnit, we did!"

A bright, sun-shiny mornin' here in Ol Fair Oaks 'n I c'n hear the caroling of the somewhat Feral Fowl…I make that disclaimer 'cuz the Chicken Wrangler lives acros't the street 'n she makes several tours 'round 'n about our fair Village daily, toting a 5 gallon bucket of chicken feed…

Yest'iday, she had a young 'un perched parrot-like on her shoulder…said an older woman came up to her, pushed the chick into her hands, said, "This's for you!" and ran away….

She sez the chick is still too young to determine the sex but doesn't seem to want to leave her shoulder, even sleeping there at nite…I didn't say anything but, since Rusty is an old dog, he quite often gets me up once or twice a night (well, you know…old bladders)…

T'day is 'Christmas in the Village' day 'n the street is blocked to vehicular traffic so I expect we'll see some turista parking on our little street…they call Crestline an Avenue but they prob'ly had a much grander design in mind when they named it back in the olden daze…..it's only two blocks long 'n one of those blocks is an alley…

I'm familiar with alley's…I grew up in a little cinder 'n gravel street village called Beattyville that wuz pretty much all alley's…everybody called it Beattyville but that wuzn't its real name…I think the real name wuz Thompson Tract after the family that had owned the property…but nobody ever called it that…

Anywaze, it's a pretty holly, jolly Christmas here in the Village…on our morning stroll, da boyz 'n I wuz serenaded by names out'a the past…Gene Autry 'n Burl Ives, Tony Bennett 'n der Bingle 'n Alvin 'n the Chipmunks…not that da boyz really paid 'em any mind…far as they're concerned, it's all just ambient noise, I think, but Heck, they were all familiar t'me...

"There are people who want to hug you simply 'cuz it's Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you for the same reason."