I have these three rescued Border collies that keep me young. By that I mean, they are always busy, and those of you familiar with Border collies understand what I mean. Just multiple it by three times. Border collies are constantly on the go even up to the day they die. My three are known as the ‘Hooligans’. Google hooligan Border collies and you’ll find some of their adventures.
Two Christmas’s ago I decided I wanted to do a nice Christmas card with my three wearing big red bows and seated around me while Mom took our picture. No problem right? What transpired next was a big series of bloopers. At one point I’m holding Patches and Blackie apart to prevent a fight. I’m sitting at my computer going through all of the pictures that we took and not a useable one in the bunch. A light bulb came on and I decided to do a collage of the bloopers on the cover with a Merry Christmas message on the inside and a letter to Santa on the back from the Hooligans explaining the perfectly good reasons why they got into the things they did. Christmas of 2011 they were in Santa hats. One of the pictures was of Patches running across the yard with the Santa hat in her mouth. Again the letter was a reasoning of why they got into the things they did.
Merry Christmas from the hooligans!
Mom decided to that we needed to make a Christmas card again this year. She is not going to learn isn’t she? After we nixed last year Santa hats and the Christmas bows the year before, we thought surely she wouldn’t try anything this year. We even snuck the Santa hat out of the garage and played tug of war with it until it came apart. They just don’t make things like they used to. When Mom came home she thought a cotton picker had driven down the driveway going to the field behind the house. Well it turns out Mommy wasn’t planning on using the Santa hats this year. She decided that we were going to wear reindeer antlers and this little red ball thing this year. We just didn’t want to do it and had other ideas. After Mom chased us around and kept putting the antlers back on us several times she finally gave up. We hope you have a Merry Christmas; Patches, Blackie, and Levi, oh, and Mary.
And the Hooligans letter to Santa is on the back of the card:
Hooligans letter to Santa:
Santa we’ve been very good doggies this year. Mom hurt her knee and had surgery last winter. We tried to help her by not worrying her when the underground fence wasn’t working. We were hunting in the field across the creek when this mean person chased us around and around and shot Blackie and Patches. Whenever we hear thunder now, we worry that mean person is coming to get us again.
And that pair of pliers we chewed the handles? We were only trying to pick it up to bring back to the house after Mom forgot it. Honest Santa, we didn’t know she was coming back to work on the faucet some more. Oh and that tree that the cicadas killed that Momma was saving for her article? It was propped up near the garbage can, so we thought we could trash it for her, honest Santa. Really we did. We help by leaving Mom presents of mice at the end of the driveway and all she says is “what have you been rolling in? You stink, and I hope you haven’t dug up something important.”
Anyway Santa, please bring us some chew bones, and good biscuits, none of that healthy stuff or stale multigrain bread that she feeds us. Also we want another one of those tires with the rope on it. We lost the one you brought us last year again. We think the coyotes are stealing it when we are asleep. Also we asked you for this last year and you didn’t bring it for us, another one of those roll around play balls. Blackie left it the front yard and Mom accidently ran over it with her tractor and its lopsided and hard to roll. Patches got hungry when Momma had to work over late and tried to eat her pull rope and lost the stuffing all over the yard. Mom said she was going to tell Santa not to bring us anything that has stuffing in it.
On behalf of myself, my hooligans and my friends of the Shoals, I wish you peace, happiness and good health in the New Year. And also good fortune.
Merry Christmas to you and yours. God bless us one and all.