SSSSSHHHHHH............

On this night, if you are very, very quiet; if you can shut out the traffic and the canned music and the roar of champagne bottles being opened; if you can shut out the much greater roar of your own distractions; and especially if you are not too far from the animal world -- living in the country, or even around pets;

-- then, on this night of the year alone, you may be able to hear the animals talking.

For on Christmas Eve, the animals are given human voices, and they whisper the news from coop to byre. Being smarter than us, they do not disbelieve or invent arguments; they just pass on the immense and astonishing story, from chickadee to rabbit, from boar to deer, from hen to cat:

--  it's happened. It really happened. And because He who made it happen is not bound by the silly rules of Time (he made Time, after all), not only did it happen but it is happening again. Tonight. Imagine the panic if Altair whooshed out of its position and came down into our solar system. So --- shhh --- here is the Master of the Universe, the Son of the Father of us all, whooshing down, or in, or up, to land -- not in a shopping mall, not in the Elysee Palace, not in the White House or the Kremlin, but in a perfectly anonymous stable or garage. And because of that ---

because of that, humans -- those silly sods who keep hunting us, eat our eggs and drink our milk -- humans are set free. Only, being far, far dumber than dumb animals, they don't know that, and keep saying Nah, forgeddaboudit, get back to the champagne and the Louis Vuitton bag. But we --

--we know, don't we. Only after tonight, we won't tell. They'll have to work it out for themselves . . . .

Did you hear them whisper? Are you tuning your ears? Does your dog look as if he has a secret? Sort of smug? Listen with GREAT CARE.