Holiday Cheer

My friend Bushy the squirrel always goes nuts over the Holiday Season. He is never content to do things small. Everything has to be big and exciting. Take for example last year. He organized a Christmas carol sing along marathon which lasted four hours. Boy were we all hoarse after that. Us Woodpilers, look forward each to year to seeing what new idea he has come up with.

While we waited with anticipation for Bushy’s 2021 holiday surprise, we were all busy doing a bit of decorating. My wife must have spent a half hour trying to decided whether we could splurge on buying a 3 inch (instead of 2 inch) wreath for the burrow door. In desperation, the salesman offered to throw in a free red bow if she bought the 3 inch one. (I think that was what she had in mind the whole time. She is a shrewd bargain hunter!) Chippy Jr. and myself spent the half hour watching critters wait in a long line to buy the latest gimmicks. It used to be a real novelty to have electronics you could control using your smartphone. Last year critters spent a small fortune buying outdoor lights you could turn on/off with a phone app. Well this year, a rather enterprising group of women ‘munks opened a shop selling “antique” holiday lights with mechanical on/off switches. They are charging 4x more than the smartphone controlled lights … there was a line out of the door of the shop.

With our holiday decoration shopping complete, we headed back to the Woodpile. We found Bushy busy with this year's holiday surprise: a gigantic 12 inch wreath to be hung on the Woodpile. The wreath was twice as big as he was! He had gathered up some of the scrap branches from the Christmas tree lot and wired them together. He made the bow from ribbon saved from a present last year. To complete the decorations, he added a couple of Christmas bulbs that had blown off someone’s yard decorations. Total cost was zilch.

Bushy hangs one of the bulbs on the wreath.

One final check to see if everything is perfect.

According to Woodpile bylaw 121-A all holiday decorations over 6 inches in size must be safety inspected by the building inspector. Mr. Titmouse our very tough inspector gave the wreath an
A+ safety rating.

 Mrs. Bluejay, our soprano singer in the Woodpile Chorus,
christens the new wreath with some traditional songs.

The completed homemade giant wreath awaits to be hung on the Woodpile. Bushy reminds us of the true holiday spirit – it is about the thought and love you put into, not how much money you spend.