#387 Jingle bells! (5)

November hadn’t even ended yet when we started seeing the first of the holiday Christmas decorations start to go up. However, now that it’s December proper, colourful lights and decorations are popping up everywhere. And since Hawkeye is now four and therefore old enough to actually converse, this December for me is all about remarking on every single Christmas light display within his line of sight. Most notably to date has been the projection of snow falling on a softly lit GPO – a sight we see every time we cycle home down O’Connell Street.

What’s that, you ask? Cycle?

Yes, earlier this year I got a bike through the Bike to Work Scheme, put a sturdy child seat on the back, and when the wind forecast permits me, I commute to Hawkeye’s creche and then my office by bike. It’s no secret now – the first time my mother heard about it I swear I could hear the shriek of horror and outrage echoing all the way across the ocean, however she has, at this point, either reconciled herself to the idea or has, at the very least, determined to think about it as little as possible. There are whole separate blog ideas to do with my bike so I won’t go into more detail there, but I will hopefully come back to those at some point over the next month.

So where was I? Oh yes, cycling down O’Connell Street. We were there the other day, but it only really sunk in today that O’Connell Street (as seen on the photo above) is properly decorated at this point. This caused Hawkeye to burst out into his rendition of Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells. 

In his version, “white horse open sleigh” is apparently “a very important sleigh” and no amount of persuasion has so far gotten him to change the words he is singing. After singing the first verse about three or four times I was wondering if he planned to stop at any point but he proceeded to launch into the second verse “Dashing through the snow”. And when he ended the verse with “… laughing all the way HO HO HO!” he …. launched right back int of the first verse of Jingle Bells.

About 64 repeats of the verses later, we nearing our own street when Hawkeye broke off his singing to suddenly reassure me. “It’s ok, mommy. This song is nearly over!”

It’s all in the timing I suppose!