{penguins and parentheses}: The Night Before Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas my penguin gave to me...

Twelve diners drumming (on the table),

Eleven cakes with piping,

Ten bores with bristles,

Nine penguins dancing,

Eight milk bottles,

Seven owls (just seven?),

Six roasted chickens,

Five golden pastries,

Four wobbling jellies,

Three French badgers,

Two turtle bars,

And a pelican in a pear tree

After the edible, decorative and sometimes just random stuff disguised as the (slightly modified) twelve days of Christmas, which increased in number to match an often disorganised and sticky penguin increasing in speed of running about madly... tonight is a Night Off. In Capital Letters, no less.

Tonight is not so much the splat before the squee, as the start of a gradual build-up of festive squee-ness. The Penguin Wrangler and her family are hosting Christmas Eve dinner, which is a source of great excitement. I’m sure nobody would be so untoward as to drum on the table, though, and we may be one or two more than a dozen in number. Perhaps, if not a baker’s dozen then, a penguin’s dozen (an extra one in case a batch doesn’t go to plan, and an extra extra one in case it does, to enable sampling).

So, before winding up in real life, and winding down activity a little in rabbit hole quarters, here’s a small Christmas thought...

Maybe it wasn’t really three wise men... maybe it was a long line of penguins...