JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Last year the girls and I composed and recorded (via speaker phone and Audioblog on Blogger) a short Christmas Kitty Cat Carol describing why we won’t find under the tree, any present that is purring.

This year my best attempt at a successor to last year’s endeavor was never fully finished and the lyrics involved a happy capybara running down the street in search of gardens. It was derived from my 3 year old’s attempt to sing Feliz Navidad which came out as Feliz Boppy Bop which then reminded us of the fun book Capyboppy….Yes, you can tell already that you don’t want to hear this tune…

However, we are not at a loss for animal holidays songs this year, thanks to HadashiWorld. I often agree with the writer of this fun and fine blog, however, I must take issue with her post from a week ago in which she claimed that the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer sung in Latin was far superior to I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.

Obviously hadashi has never met my middle daughter, the hippo aficionado we happen to call Michaela (see “hippo” tag on my flickr page or search for “hippo” on my blog). I had not heard of this holiday hippo tune but I knew immediately I had to play it for her that morning after reading hadashi’s post. Has there been a song that expressed my daughter’s desires in a truer fashion? I am sad to say that there will not be a hippo hero standing in our living room munching on the furniture when she opens her eyes tomorrow morning. Or at least Santa hasn’t brought it over yet.

But Grandma did give her a toy hippo on Christmas Eve and so I had to play the song in celebration. Hippopotamus for Christmas – at least a small stuffed version – hurray!

What do I want for Christmas? Not a hippopotamus. Too much work. (Actually my daughter might even say that herself – when we last discussed getting a dog, the girls were all convinced, on their own, that it was too much responsibility).

All I want for Christmas is time. Two days would do it. One day to spend resting, reflecting, meditating and reading, restoring myself spiritually. Another day to spend writing on this blog and putting the stack of paper notes beside the Powerbook into posts. Well, maybe three days would be enough…

Time. How I need it. Maybe Santa will leave some in my stocking…

I hope to write more about holidays soon. In the meantime, I want to say thank you to everyone who stops by this blog. May your holidays be a refreshing and fun time! May your deepest dreams and desires be fulfilled! May you know childish joy!