Four Colly Birds! Or Maybe Just One..

  Well, the tree is all decorated, the mantles are ready for the stockings to be hung and garland is strung on the stair rail.  That is about the extent of my decorations this year.  I have called it quits in hopes that now I can rest a bit.  Today, I repacked the unused decorations to be stowed away for the next few weeks until this all starts in reverse.  As I was repacking the boxes, I came across one ornament that just screamed to be let out of the box and on display.  A tiny, plastic blackbird could not be hidden away in the piles of tinsel...it just would not be Christmas without it. 

  The tiny blackbird was gifted to me by my cousins.  It was on their Christmas Tree that I always remember seeing the blackbirds.  In a way, I sort of grew up at my Aunt Marie and Uncle Alfred's place.  I was there about as much as I was at home.  Every year, the blackbirds made an appearance on the tree and yet, I knew nothing about them other than the fact that I really liked them.

  While I do not know the history behind the little bird, I do know that Christmas just would not be the same without it.  How the birds became a family tradition or even where they were purchased remains a mystery with me and is one I should definitely ask one of my cousins.  All of this got me to thinking....why blackbirds at Christmas?  So a bit of detective work began. 

  It seems that this may have started way back around 1780 when the words to the European verse "The Twelve Days of Christmas" were penned.  At first, this was not a song but sort of a rhyme.  The twelve days actually refer to the twelve days AFTER Christmas and not before as we now believe.  The original verse states that there were four colly birds and not calling.  This changed over the year until finally the song has become the (almost irritating after the two billionth time of hearing it) song we all know.  It seems that not too many folks realized what colly birds were even at the beginning so the word evolved to calling birds.  Now to set the record straight, colly birds are actual birds.  Well, sort of actual birds.  Colly is a regional European word for sooty or grimy such as one might describe a chimney sweep (not to be confused with a Chimney Swift bird).  In the song, the word is used in reference to the European Blackbird (which is not a blackbird at all but rather is in the Thrush family).  Such fun! But now you know!

 I sat holding the little plastic blackbird and was transported back in time to the Christmas holidays of days past.  I remember the pine tree that Uncle Alfred would steady up in the living room with nails and string and I remember helping Margaret hang the ornaments on the tree while Aunt Marie was in the kitchen stirring up something delicious.  I do, indeed, have fond memories of times there.