One December evening, a few years ago, the doorbell rang. I was expecting our music pastor to show up for the Grinch Santa hat I had been resizing for our upcoming production of "Christmas Shoes." His wife needed it the next morning for her Grinch song at the public school. Not realizing this hat had to double duty in 2 musicals, I quickly opened the door, hat in hand, but no one was there! Puzzled, I looked around and something on the ground caught my eye…a can of food and a note. I picked it up and it was a can of pears with the note, "On the first day of Christmas your crazy friends gave to you, a partridge in a pear tree." At first I suspected the music pastor or a choir member. I looked around the corner but saw no one. Here is the list of things we received on the next 11 days, as best as the children and I can recall.

1 Partridge in a Pear Tree-can of pears

2 Turtle Doves-bag of Dove chocolates

3 French Hens-Bag of Fancy Frozen French Fries

4 Calling Birds-play plastic cell phones

5 Golden Rings-can of pineapple rings

6 Geese A-Laying-apple ornament (This was a talented goose to be able to lay apples!)

7 Swans A Swimming-Swan Bubble Bath

8 Maids A-Milking-butterscotch candies

9 Ladies Dancing-(we can’t remember, perhaps little dancing shoes?)

10 Lords A-Leaping-rubber ball

11 Pipers Piping-whistles

12 Drummers Drumming-My friend and her husband and children showed up at door and sang, "On the 12^th day of Christmas your crazy friends gave to you…." Then they gave us some pencils that said "Happy Birthday Jesus."

This was from my dear friend who always said she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. I had to disagree! She wanted to bless me during my busy season of working on the choir production. In the meantime I had gotten very sick, so a lot of our usual Christmas fun had to go by the wayside. This seemed so Providential and I truly felt blessed.

She told me that her children dressed in black clothes and had a flashlight. She drove them to near our house and they snuck out of their van to sneakily approach our house and quickly ring the doorbell and leave the gift. Then they’d run down the street to get in the van and take off. The notes were in handwriting, which I eventually recognized. But I had no idea what they would come up with next. The rest of the family was guessing. DS saw the van the first night and recognized it as theirs, so if any of you want to do this and you accidentally get caught, it's still fun! I had planned on surprising them with treats and a trip to their house on the last night, waiting for them to come back from our house. But my kids and I had gotten sick and life around here seems to stop when I get sick. My plans would have been foiled anyway because she surprised me yet again. On the last day, I was out to check the mail and walking up the hill, when they were standing at our front door talking to dh and the kids. Suddenly I realized why they were there…it was day 12. When I got to the door, they told me to hurry and go in and shut the door. Realizing why, although not knowing what in the world they were going to do, I walked in and shut the door. My family thought I was so rude! They rang the doorbell and we opened the door and they sang the last verse! It took a while for dh to realize what was going on. He still thought our next door neighbor had been doing this! It was too much fun and these are some of my happiest Christmas memories!