Venetian Cat Flap.
Don’t leave the cat out this Christmas.
For many of us, pets play an extremely important role in our lives. It is no wonder many people treat them as family members. They provide some with more love and companionship than they get from blood relatives.
And in times past, when people were much closer to the land and to animals, both domesticated and wild, the animals still had a part to play in the celebration of Christmas, for was not Christ born in a manger with the animals as witnesses.
The Friendly Beasts
trad. English Carol
Jesus our saviour kind and good
Was humbly born in a stable of wood
And the friendly beasts around Him stood,
Jesus our saviour kind and good.
“I”, said the donkey shaggy and brown,
“I carried His mother up hill and down
I carried her safely to Bethlehem town”.
“I”, said the donkey shaggy and brown.
“I”, said the cow all white and red,
"I gave Him my manger for a bed
I gave Him my hay for to pillow His head”.
“I”, said the cow all white and red.
“I”, said the sheep with the curly horn,
“I gave Him my blanket for a warm
And he wore my coat on that Christmas morn”.
“I”, said the sheep with the curly horn.
“I”, said the dove from the rafters high,
“I cooed Him to sleep so He would not cry
We cooed Him to sleep my mate and I”.
“I”, said the dove from the rafters high.
“I”, said the camel all yellow and black,
“Over the desert upon my back
I brought Him a gift in the wise men's pack”.
“I”, said the camel all yellow and black.
Thus every beast remembering it well
In the stable dark was so proud to tell
Of the gifts they gave Emmanuel,
The gifts they gave Emmanuel.
For some more recent Christmas animal music, check out The Animals’ Christmas by Jimmy Webb, performed by Art Garfunkel and Amy Grant, if you can find it.
In parts of Britain it was traditional to reserve a special sheaf of corn (which is to say, wheat) from the August harvest to be fed to the animals as part of the Christmas feast. In much of continental Europe, the leftovers of the Christmas feast are shared with the farm animals. In the Baltic countries it is traditional to offer the stock a share of the Christmas bread. In Poland and Slovakia, pets and barn animals alike also share the family oplatki, the thin Christmas wafers. Some of these are usually coloured and reserved specifically for the animals.
In the Ozarks, which like many isolated areas in the US preserves the language and customs inherited from regional European forebears, Christmas used to be celebrated on the 6th January, at the Feast of the Epiphany. This is still known as Old Christmas, as opposed to the more recently enforced New Christmas of December 25th. Here the tradition still exists that on Christmas Eve the livestock kneel, and may even pray with human voices.
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,
"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
The Oxen, Thomas Hardy.
Here's an arrangement by The Real Group, one of the world's premier acapella groups.