Merry Christmas, World

Four days from now, my dog Hannah and I will wake long before daylight, trek to the barn, and pull dozens and dozens of heavy rubber dishes from their neat stacks, line them up, and fill them with breakfast for cows and horses, chickens and geese. Well, to be more precise, I will do that part. Hannah’s job will be to patrol the large feed room, waiting for morsels to drop. I’ll stack the dishes of fruits and vegetables, grains and pellets on a cart and then at 7:30, staff will arrive and load the bounty onto their vehicles and head out to the hopeful critters anxiously awaiting their Christmas breakfast.

Meantime, though, Hannah and I must get the hay. Well, again, I do that part, technically. Hannah’s job is to accompany me to the hay barn, charge maniacally up the stairs to the loft, and then again to the top of the hay, then down. Up and down she leaps and spins in sheer joy of being a young dog hanging with her mama and the critters on a crisp morning. My joy is much more mundane: heaving bale after bale after bale of sweet-smelling timothy hay into the beds of trucks parked below, and smiling as Tucker, Babe and crew bellow impatiently below us. “Mmmm—OOOOO!” Babe will say. “It’s coming, Babe!” I’ll answer.

When we’re done, Hannah will jump into the pickup and we’ll return to the barn and park the trucks. I’ll hug humans and horses and plant a kiss on Rambo’s forehead. We’ll return at 10:30 with coffee and juice, and heaps of steaming fruit pancakes and fakin’ bacon. We’ll chat and laugh and eat our fill, and when we can eat no more, Hannah and I will head to the pig barn, dividing the pancakes among Nadine and Peggy Sue, Amelia and Roscoe, Ozzi and Chopper, and all the rest…

“How do you spend Christmas?” folks ask me every year.

“Exactly the way I want to…” is my response.

Merry Christmas, World.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHK-l2ETGD4[/youtube]