How Would You Like Your Pet?

Two Chained Monkeys  Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Family Monkey 

by Russell Edson
We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather
recklessly with funds carefully gathered since
grandfather's time for the purchase of a steam monkey.

We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric
or gas monkey.

The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey
merchant.

But the family always planned on a steam monkey.

Well, said the monkey merchant, just as the wind-up monkey
gave way to the steam monkey, the steam monkey has given way
to the gas and electric monkeys.

Is that like the grandfather clock being replaced by the
grandchild clock?

Sort of, said the monkey merchant.

So we bought the electric monkey, and plugged its umbilical
cord into the wall.

The smoke coming out of its fur told us something was wrong.

We had electrocuted the family monkey.

The First Day of Christmas

The Number ing at Bethlehem   Pieter Bruegel the Elder 

St. Joseph Seeks Lodging  James Tissot

Luke 2 1-6 

And it came to pass in those days 

that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus 

that all the world should be registered. 

This census first took place 
while Quirinius was governing Syria. 

So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth,

 into Judea, to the city of David, 
which is called Bethlehem, 

Nativity  Lorenzo Lotto

because he was of the house 
and lineage of David, 

to be registered with Mary, 
his betrothed wife, who was with child. 

So it was, that while they were there, 

the days were completed for her to be delivered. 

And she brought forth her firstborn Son, 

and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, 

and laid Him in a manger, 

because there was no room for them in the inn.

Playtime

Children's Games Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Nurses Song: Songs of Innocence
                                by William Blake
When the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.

‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.’

‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.’

‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.’
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed
And all the hills echoèd.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

The Harvesters   Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Reapers in Autumn
                       by James Thomson

Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And unperceived, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand,
In fair array.

At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind, the master walks, builds up the shocks:
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandman! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh think!
How good the God of harvest is to you,
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.