Like many of you, I spent much of the long, Thanksgiving weekend putting up Christmas decorations. This joyous experience reminded me of a classic children’s story (which has been a classic since I made it up last year.)
Gather round, my kiddies, while I tell…
Little Red Hen’s Christmas Tale
Little Red Peg taking care of Christmas business.
Once upon a time, Little Red Hen lived in a cozy little coop with her happy little family. It was Christmas time and Little Red Hen thought some decorations would add to their holiday joy.
So she bought some egg nog and cookies, put on her favorite Bing Crosby Christmas CD and settled in for some holiday memory-making
“Who will help me set up the tree?” she asked.
“Not I”, said the rooster.
“Not I”, said the first chickee.
“Not I”, said the second chickee.
“Then I will do it myself,” said Little Red Hen. And so she did.
Amidst a considerable amount of swearing. Little Red Hen developed tree burns and little cuts on her wings from wrestling the 9-foot tall, artificial tree out the box, putting it all together and fluffing the scratchy branches.
“Who will help me put all the lights on the tree?” she asked.
“Not I”, said the rooster.
“Not I”, said the first chickee.
“Not I”, said the second chickee.
“Then I will do it myself”, said Little Red Hen. And so she did.
With nobody to hand the strings of lights to, she was up and down the ladder at least 26 times. All the lights worked when she tested them, but half of the strands went out as soon as they were all plugged together.
“Who will help me put all the ornaments on the tree?” she asked.
“Not I” said the rooster.
“Not I”, said the first chickee.
“Not I”, said the second chickee.
“If you think I’m doing any more decorating without any help from you selfish, lazy slobs” said Little Red Hen, “you’re crazy!” She burst into tears and took off for the mall with a squeal of tires.
The rooster and the 2 little chickees ate all the cookies, drank all the egg nog, turned off the Bing Crosby CD and watched Jackass reruns on TV.
And the half-decorated tree and 3 big boxes full of ornaments are still sitting in the middle of the living room floor to this very day.
The End.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
That’s effin’ adorable! (of course they watched jackass…)
I used to have hens, and the one in your pic looks suspisciously like a Buff Orpington…unless she is really a Rhode Island Red who double processes?
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Er…Yes!
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Perfect……..I’m sharing and posting on my blog………
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It’s nice to share. Thanks!
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I am Laughing OUT LOUD. Great, great story! A family classic. Thank you.
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It’s a classic at my house, at any rate.
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Me too! Belly laughs continue even as I type this. 😀
This is not, of course, to say I revel in the hen’s pain. I just appreciate her way of turning that into comic gold, regardless!
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There should be more realistic children’s stories like these.
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Maybe we should leave the kiddies their illusions. There’s plenty of time to wrestle with reality when they hit their twenties.
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I think I might just be that hen!
Hilarious!
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I kind of thought maybe I wasn’t the only Little Red Hen in the barnyard.
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Except this hen just gets a bottle out of the fridge and battles on determined to make the tree look nice…. maybe I should learn to drive then I’d have an escape!
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I think you may have hit on the solution – I just need to add some rum to that eggnog and I’ll be good to go!
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Do you have a hidden camera in my house … err … coop?! Love it — thanks, Peg!
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I have a feeling this story is playing out in coops around the world this season.
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I’m with Jackie, please write more and then sell them in a compilation “Pegoleg’s Reality Bites Tales”
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To tell the truth, I WAS thinking of something like that. Thanks for the catchy title idea!
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Oh poor Little Red Hen..that is so sad!
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Well, it was supposed to be funny. Little Red Hen has decided to laugh at stuff like this, so she doesn’t cry.
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I second Darla’s Reality Bites Tales by Pegoleg!
This is hilarious!! Ha’larious! Ding dangity, this is funny stuff. As usual, the dressed up picture is wonderful, too!
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Notice how I almost always manage to stick myself in the picture? It’s a narcissist thing. I’m trying to get help for it.
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Hilarious!
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Thank you, ma’am!
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I hope the Little Red Hen went off to the Neighborhood Coop with some of her sister Hens and had a flapping good time, leaving her Rooster little chicks to fend for themselves for a while. 😉
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That’s a great idea, Lorna. Next time I’ll call a fellow decorating-sufferer and we’ll paint the town red.
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At least the rest of the chickens didn’t build a giant slingshot and launch themselves into the half-decorated tree Johnny Knoxville style. I guess.
🙂
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Talk about reaching to come up with a silver lining…
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I don’t get it. Hens and roosters and chicks can’t actually decorate trees can they? And I know they can’t really talk. And driving a car to the mall – no way! Maybe you are trying to convey some kind of cryptic message here, you know, sort of like a parable. I’m just not sure.
Anyway, I’ve got to finish my egg nog and run, my wife just finished decorating and I want to see what it looks like. Too bad I ate the last cookie, I’d give her one.
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Aw, Al, do these seemingly-anti-husband rants annoy you? You’re probably the one in twenty who cheerfully helps with all the decorating chores about the house.
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Actually I do, Peg but I’m pretty sure that Patty spends more time when I’m gone “fixing” the work I did. I’m an arts and crafts person’s worst nightmare and she is so creative.
No problem with the male-bashing, we mostly deserve it. But you do still love us don’t you? We are kind of cute and cuddly at times.
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Couldn’t do without y’all!
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This is hilarious!! Im sure this will be me one day…but for now my roosters and little chick are still young and like to take part in the festivities of decorating for the holiday season
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Thanks for reminding me – they DID love to help when they were little. Then, after they went to bed, you had to redistribute the 100 ornaments on the bottom 1 foot of the tree.
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Hope those ungrateful little chicks are getting coal in their stockings!
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Not with the price of fossil fuels this year. I’m giving Kardashian DVDs – much cheaper.
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Yes! Same thing happens to me! We need a hen club (I will bring the rum for the eggnog). I currently have about ten boxes strewn about the house. Peppermeister did help me get them from the attic this year. I call that progress.
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I was able to corral the hubby and 1 chick to shoulder sections of the tree up from the basement to the living room. Jeez, aren’t we easily pleased.
Hen club + adult beverages = fun times. I’m in!
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GREAT POST!
My husband is good about decorating the tree. Taking it down…well, um, NEVER. If it was up to him, it would still be up. (but we’d be all set for this year.)
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I’ve heard of people who keep the tree up all year and just put on different decorations for each holiday. I’m not so sure about that, though.
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Ha! Yeah, that sounds about right. This is why my Christmas decorating consists entirely of one three foot tall fiber optic light up tree. I take it out of the box and plug it in. Instant Christmas!
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That’s what my hubby is lobbying for. I said the pre-lit, pre-decorated 3-ft tree, that you whisk down from the attic and remove the dry cleaning bag from each year, smacks of old people who have given up. No offense.
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Well, then you are half-way done with the decorating for THIS year. 🙂 Cute story. Sure to be a classic!
At a family Christmas gathering a few years ago, we had two bowls of egg nog with the following labels: “Feel Good Eggnog” and “Feel Real Good Eggnog.” Might I suggest some of the latter?
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Now THAT’S a Christmas decorating tradition I can really get behind. Maybe put the “real good” bowl up high so the kids can’t get into it?
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fortunately i had the rooster and the chickees help me out. the chickees of course went overboard. so much so that i was this close to speeding off to the mall. oh! the joys of holiday decorating.
this was fun.
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It IS fun. I just have to remind myself of that. One of the chickees is coming home this weekend, so I’m going to lay in a fresh supply of eggnog and hope that she wants to crack open one of the boxes of ornaments to finish the job.
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The rooster at my house used to put the lights on the tree every year. He would wrap the wires a couple of times around each branch and wind the lights up the trunk to get the effect he wanted. Taking down the tree took ages. (No one ever helps this hen take the decorations down.) Now when he asks if I would like help with the lights, I just give him the cookies and send him off to watch TV.
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I have a feeling my own picky way of decorating the tree may have driven the rooster off years ago, now that I look back. Sigh.
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This is why I don’t decorate for Christmas. Or live with people.
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You don’t decorate at all? Now THAT would really depress me. I want it all – the Martha Stewart setting, and the Norman Rockwell family experience. Seems I want to live in a magazine.
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I prop up any cards I get from family/friends, but that’s it. I generally spend Christmas day with people who are more enthusiastic about decorating than I am.
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OMG Peg-o-Leg, this left me leaning over my laptop laughing so hard there were tears trying to short circuit my keyboard!!! The art work, as usual, stunning! I would personally like to read the sequel, The Little Red Hen Does Lunch at the Mall as the girls gather, frustrated to the max, with their little cups of egg nog with Courvoisier (if it was good enough for Napoleon, its good for the gathering of Hens). Thanks for always leaving me with a smile on my face and joy in my heart!!!
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Darn – I forgot to put Courvoisier on my shopping list. Thanks for the reminder, Carol! (and for the kind words.)
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This is hilarious! I hope you don’t mind that I linked to your story on my blog. I laughed so hard… this is my house – only I have four chicks – all males, and they are at the age that they just don’t care much about this part of Christmas anymore. But after reading this, I just announced that I won’t be doing the tree this year. I’m letting go…and letting them! Thanks!
I enjoyed all the comments about as much as the post. 🙂 Can relate to so many of them.
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I want my husband to help out, but if he expresses an opinion on a decorating issue that is different from my own, I tell him to mind his own business. Is that wrong?
Thanks for the kind comments and the shout-out.
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I think the living room floor would be a great place to leave it all and see how the little chick-a-dees like it on Christmas morning! Us hens have spoiled the whole flock. What is wrong with us!!!
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Exactly. And we work for chicken scratch (ba-dum dum).
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.. at least the little lady tried… she’s ahead of me! … very cute story!
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Peggy, that was my exact story also for probably the last 5 or 6 years. Then low and behold, daughter number 2 came home from college for Thanksgiving (obviously hungering for family tradition or something ) and put up BOTH trees that weekend, the latter being a 12 footer that normally takes me about 7 hrs to do. I think I still have a huge bruise on the bottom of my chin from where it hit the floor after I came home from the cabin and walked in to see the trees all lighted and decorated. So there may be hope for you yet 🙂 Merry Christmas!
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Wow! You did something right with that one. You’re inspiring me to hope for a brighter decorating future, Jeannie! Hope your bruised chin heals up before Christmas.
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