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12 Days of Christmas

Here’s a funny story. And, even though it isn’t Christmas, I am celebrating the return of the blog!

Because a cross stitcher never has enough charts, late last night I was looking on Etsy and 123Stitch to see what new charts were out. It was about midnight and I should have been in bed. Of course, I can’t even find it now but there was a chart and it was either the 12 Days of Christmas or little charts for each of the 12 days but on Day 4, it had “4 colly birds!” I enlarged it to make sure I was seeing it right. Yes, colly birds! Have you ever heard of that? I had not. I sat here and thought . . I need to do a blog post about this. I kept thinking about it. I new my friend Sarah would be up so I called her.

Me: What was the gift for the 4th Day of Christmas?
Sarah: (Singing to herself) On the first day of Christmas, my true love . .

She got to the 4th day and because I had asked her about that one, she couldn’t remember anything!

Me: Birds! Four what kind of birds?
Sarah: Blue birds?

Oh, my . . we were both cracking up. If Vince were here, I’d be laughing so loud I would have awakened him and then I would have tried to explain to him what was so funny and he would have found no humor in it!

So, I explained to Sarah about seeing “colly” birds. She delcared it had to be a typo. Not on a cross stitch chart so we were both googling it. Here’s a decent explanation.

I think it’s so weird that never once have I ever heard it called colly birds. For a minute, I thought the entire world probably knew it was colly birds and I was the only one who’s been saying calling birds!

Speaking of saying things wrong, I know I’ve told this story on here before but Chad was 6 or 7 and he was in a private school in Lake Charles. There was a bus that picked the kids up at several private schools and they went to after school care at one or the churches. Chad wasn’t in Catholic school but the big Catholic elementary school was Our Lady Queen of Heaven. One day on the way home, Chad was talking about some kid and I asked him if the kid went to his school. He said “No, he goes to Old Lady”. I said “Old Lady?” He said “You know . . Old Lady Queen of Heaven”. I said “Chad! It’s NOT Old Lady . . it’s Our Lady.” He swore all the kids called it Old Lady and knowing kids . . they may have but that’s not the name of the school and Chad seriously thought that was the name of the school. I should ask him. I wonder if he still thinks it’s Old Lady.

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Comments

  1. Funny Chad story. When my son was in grade school he had a classmate named Omar. My son thought his name was Old Marv! Another funny – I have used your line “i’m making a cake” a couple of times when Husband asks what I’m doing and I think it should be obvious. Now when he comes in from doing chores sometimes he asks me “where is my cake?” Glad your blog is up and going again. I missed it.

    • That’s funny. I’ve missed Vince asking me a dozen or more times a day what I’m doing when it’s so darned obvious. Haven’t been able to use my “baking a cake” line. Glad you’re having fun with it.

  2. Hi Judy
    I also was on etsy looking for a vintage piece that would be useful? Came upon a piece called pin poke!!!! Yay something I can stitch and use, it lies over sofa end with a rectangula pin cushion in the middle. A place to put my needles in , instead of the chair arm, where they have a habit of disappearing !! Must have a ton of metal in that old sofa. Great that you are back, missed you. Xx

    • I need that! Today I ordered some magnetic strips from Amazon. My plan is to use either a piece of cardboard or glue several pieces of cardstock together, punch a hole in it, stick one of those magnetic strips on it, use one of the 3M removable hook things (you’d think since Vince worked for them I’d know what to call it but I don’t). I’ll stuck the removable thing on the side of the table here by my chair, hang the cardboard with the metal strip on it and use that for needles since I also have them in the arm of my chair and my arm is starting to look like I have been poking needles in myself . . which I guess is kinda true.

      • Hi Judy
        Oh etsy is a dangerous place ! You mentioned on your blog about silk floss I’ve just purchased some vintage shades. I am so excited as I have never used silk always DMC. Any tips ? Will need all the help. Xx

        • Isn’t it!! I have yet to use the silk floss so maybe you can use it first and share tips with me! 🙂

          I do remember seeing on a floss tube that it can be tricky to separate out the strands and that peopel store it in plastic bags because it gets fuzzy easy if stored like regular floss. That’s the extent of what I know . . except it’s so pretty and I want lots of it.

          Where did you get vintage shades? Oh, wait . . do I really want to know? Yes!!

  3. Colly birds, never heard that one before! Still learning new things every day! So glad you’re back, I missed you! Good luck with the final move, I know how happy you’ll be to have Vince at home with you, even though it will take some adjustment…

  4. Agree with Carolyn…never had heard of colly birds. Interesting article that you referred to. Learned something new!

  5. Umm, I learned ‘colly’ birds when I was little, always wondered what kind of birds they were. I guess ‘calling’ birds became the norm when so many people didn’t know the truth. In 1780 (washington post did the research) the 12 days of Christmas poem listed 4 colly birds – but the word colly meant coally, as in black as coal.

  6. Judy, I found your colly bird cross stitch. It is in an Etsy shop called TwoPartsSpice or just search Etsy for colly bird cross stitch.

  7. At our house it will forever be a Cartridge in a Bare Tree! The story is My dear husband was a passionate shooter and reloader and I always tried to do amusing things with his “tools of the trade”. One year I noticed the very bare mulberry tree out front and grabbed an empty cartridge and put in the branch. He noticed it and asked why it was there and I said figure it out. He finally did and laughed and laughed. Oh, I also took empty green and red shotgun shells and made a wreath!

  8. yes I had to look that one up I always sang Calling…… but I guess Colly black birds in other words works

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