…my true love brought to me Seven Dedes drinking, six punters paying, five golden things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
No surprises today, after all it is New Year’s Eve and some of the Dedes like to party :). HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends. May 2016 be full of fun and laughter and all your wishes become true!
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me six punters paying, five golden things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
In the original carol, the true love had send presents up till now. Strangely after day 5 it changes to activities that can be watched or joined. On the sixth day “Six geese a laying” were sent. Having backyard chickens I definitely would value the laying fowls. My present of course was different: Six Dedes showed up with bundles of money. Maybe they had found the geese from the original song and they were of the kind that laid golden eggs. Or maybe the Dedes adopted the Chinese custom to repay debts before the New Year so they can start with a clean slate. Pity only that it was some sort of monopoly money, God knows where they found that.
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me five goldend things, four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
This time I get it! This is soooo typical Dede, they always come up with a cheap, homemade solution. In the original carol, the true love sends five golden rings. And what does L’Artiste do? He rummages through the recycle box in his studio, finds five odd things and spray paints them gold. Ah well, I guess it is the thought that counts!
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me Four thrown-off frocks, three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dread tree.
These four chums threw away their beautiful and very useful black robes, sorry Rae! (Rae made the frocks for the Dedes, so they got bodies). And now they are sitting once again heads only on their sticks, just as they were invented. Three of them seem to be very happy to be No bodies again. Only Bad Conscience, the one in the front, looks uncomfortable. But why do they bring me their frocks? Does this mean they want to slip back into oblivion. Do I push them too hard?
Previous presents
…my true love brought to me three strange friends, two purple gloves and a chicken in a dead tree.
Three strange friends? What is this about? Aren’t all friends strange to some degree? One of this crowd is obviously severely depressed and they found the skeleton in my closet. Maybe they want to remind me of one of the Dede’s mottoes: Embrace Diversity! Or maybe it is a hint I should appreciate my friends more!
Previous presents
…of Christmas my true love brought to me Two Purple Gloves and a Chicken in a Dead Tree.
Now I am even more bamboozled. They obviously didn’t put much thought into their selection of presents or who is going to deliver them. Isn’t the bunny totally out of season? Also, in the original song, the second present was “two turtle doves”. Doves are the symbol of peace. The gloves and the rabbit’s posture looks more like fighting stance to me. He looks very determined, too.
Previous present
Chicken in a dread tree
…my true love brought to me A chicken in a dead tree. Now this should make you think. In the original song of Twelve Days of Christmas, a partridge in a pear tree was given. First of all, I am happy it is not a dead chicken in a tree. But what could the Dedes mean by giving me a chicken in a dead tree? What are they trying to tell me?
Many people will say Merry Christmas today. I prefer it to Season Greetings or Happy Holidays or whatever the current political correct greeting is. Even though I am not religious. It certainly doesn’t hurt to stop and think about what formed our culture. Here Alien is reading in one of my priced heirlooms: a prayer book that was given to my grandmother by her grandmother in 1909. Good on him.
Sometimes I have the feeling the Dedes are the only ones that use their cookbook. But then I got this really lovely email yesterday about the launch event:
Thanks for iniviting me to the launch of the Artist’s Survival Cookbook. It was a fantastic idea to have guests try making the recipes and my 8yr old son had a ball. Being of Italian descent it was great to have my son making and then eating his own pasta. The experience was so successful that I understand Santa is bringing him a pasta maker this year.
So we have at least one young convert. I would say that was a mission accomplished :)
Mouse, the practical one, suggested we should do another project together. That always helps. Something along the lines of the Super Dede competition we did leading up to Christmas three years ago. We always have brilliant times when we work together and all our differences seem forgotten. Of course this year we are a bit late and Christmas is already upon us. We won’t be able to pull anything off before the 25th. Then someone suggested the Dedes could recreate the famous english Christmas carol “Twelve Days of Christmas.” It has such a catchy tune and as the lyrics are so dada, it fits the Dedes to a tee. I am pretty sure you know the carol: it starts off with “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me one partridge in a pear tree” and then it continues for twelve days and every day the true love brings a new present, such as maids a milking or pipers piping, as well as all the previous ones. So the list gets longer and longer.
Mouse printed out the lyrics and here is the original list of presents:
According to various sources on the internet the song has a catholic background and the gifts refer to some features from the bible. For example, the four calling birds are four apostles. Other sources say it has french roots and that catholics appropriated it when they weren’t allowed to practise openly in England between mid 1500 and 1800. Anyway, the Dedes had the idea to bring all these gifts to the readers as they wanted to give something back. But when they saw what they have to organise their excitement plummeted. For example, they could organise eight maids to do the milking, but they only have one cow. Where would they get a partridge or swans? We don’t have any of those in the Dede community. When they looked on the internet to find where they can source everything, they found out that each year since 1984 PNC Wealth Management calculates how much it costs to buy all the presents mentioned in the song (Christmas price index). In 2015 the cost amounted to a whooping $154,000 US dollars (compared to $61,000 in 1984). Needless to say, the Dedes can’t afford to buy them and what would we do with a partridge in a pear tree anyway.
In the meantime, they have spent so much time on the research that they don’t want to let go of the idea and last night I found them huddling over the list discussing alternatives. I am curious!
dedepuppets 