Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for January 05, 2022

Mystery delivery after Christmas. Gee! I don’t remember not getting everything at Christmas.

Five golden rings!

Leaving aside the view of the programming instructor on the correct billing method when we invoiced the sender, How do you count what the singer received? One of each category? Or compounded each day until the final total on the last day? I have seen and heard arguments for both methods of accounting, some of which got quite heated.

I’ve seen this version with the last few muddled up before, but I think the traditional version was

Twelve lords a leaping

Eleven ladies dancing

Ten pipers playing

Nine drummers drumming.

It works better, getting the alliteration of the “L” in the first two lines. I learned a version that had

Ten drummers drumming

Nine pipers piping.

which gives us the assonance of the “i” , and so works even better. But it doesn’t seem very tradtional.

The Times* used to calculate the cost every year. They used the Highland regiments to get the price for the pipers and drummers, the Royal Ballet for the ladies, and the attendance allowance for the House of Lords to get the charge for the lords.

(*The newspaper of that name, not one of the knock-offs that add “Times” to the name of the city.)

Doesn’t look like Janis liked the idea of 8 Maids on New Years Day.

In Spain, Tres Reyes (three kings) is celebrated today. In fact, Tres Reyes is when presents are exchanged rather than Christmas.

Wishing Jimmy well; miss the oldies.

Today is January 5th…should be 11 pipers piping.

Of all the things we ordered online this year we only had a problem getting one item before Xmas. It was supposed to have been shipped a few days after the order was placed but we never got an email with the tracking information. After a few emails asking about the order and get a less than satisfactory response I disputed the charge on Xmas eve. Amazingly after getting the credit card company involved we got an email with tracking information. I wouldn’t recommend the website. It shouldn’t take disputing the charge for them to get their act together. Thankfully we didn’t use a debit card and had recourse to dispute the charge.

Seems they forgot to punch airholes for the turtledoves.

models???

January 6th would be “eleven pipers piping”, eh?

He has Prime-nesia

wait… did they get 8 maids a-milking?

With Christmas soon gone, the dark days of Winter will begin in earnest, even though the days grow longer.

@ jarvisloop

Thanks for cheering us up :)

Too small to be that new parka I ordered Saturday morning.

The new version: ‘On the 1st day of Christmas, Amazon delivered to me….’

Good one. Janis reminding Arlo that in their comic strip world it could be big enough.

Musically, five golden rings is best part of the song.

Interesting how people pick up unknown parcels at their doorstep but not at airports.

It could be 12 drummers drumming in form of Russian nesting dolls (matryoshka).

Great gag, Jimmy, on this 12th and last day of Christmas.

Nice twilight.

Has anyone here read the 12 thank you notes of Christmas, Emily to Edward. It is hilarious.A radio station personality reads it every Christmas.

Today is the traditional Twelfth Night. Started in England and in the states faded in the mid 1800s when Christmas became the big holiday.

The Eight Maid Milking would also include 8 cows. That’s a pretty large package.

Or 40 cows if you use the compound counting method.

HEY, HEY, HEY! Flagrant foul! I don’t even want to hear/read references to Christmas songs after the first of January.

He was wrong??

The Schrodinger’s cat of Amazon boxes?