Twelve days of Christmas can equal two dozen days of frustration.
This year at the Western Producer we decided to celebrate the yuletide season with an ode to the joy and giving ways of the holiday reflected in the 17th century song, the Twelve Days of Christmas.
As with anything involving Christmas, I put off the assignment until the final few weeks. This is hardly the last minute in the newspaper business but little did I know of the challenges ahead.
Doves? Pigeons are common in wooden grain elevators but there are few wooden elevators left, hence no photographs of doves or their near cousins.
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Ten years ago one could easily borrow three hens from a farmer and take them outside to be photographed. Today, biosecurity measures prevent the return of chickens to the barn once removed.
Geese don’t lay in December. I thought about photographing the Canada geese that inhabit Regina’s Wascana Park, but this year the lake was drained for dredging.
Eight maids a milking? Employing eight staffers on a farm is a labour cost few can afford, even if they are an APF-CAISP eligible expense.
It’s hard to find nine adults in a small prairie town that aren’t too busy working their full-time jobs plus farming. Dance-related recreation isn’t in the cards.
Ten lords a leaping? I phoned some farm families named Lord. Most said they were too old to leap. One said there were only the two of them because the kids had moved to Calgary for work and couldn’t get time off from their jobs to come home for Christmas. Besides, their daughters-in-law had kept their maiden names and the grandkids’ names were hyphenated so they wouldn’t all be Lords anyway.
Rural schools used to be happy to have a farm journalist come to call. Today, if I want to photograph Bobby and Susie and eight of their fellow students playing the recorder, a pipe-like instrument, or kids pounding a dozen drums, I need to make prior arrangement with the board of education so they can send home notes asking the approval of each child’s parents. Even if I managed all that, I was advised not to make any reference to a Christmas concert because they are now known as non-denominational, non-secular mid-winter celebrations.
All of which is to explain why we have illustrated some but not all of the 12 days of Christmas in our photographic prairie interpretation of the holiday.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and happy new year.
