One of our family hobbies is black powder guns. We attend a few black powder shoots during the summer months, during which we set up our old style white canvas tent, dress in early American clothing and participate in different competitions having to do with the Mountain Man era rendezvous. The sport is called “Buck-skinning”, a term that came from the buckskin clothing the mountain men wore. I say that to introduce the “Buckskinners Version of the Night Before Christmas”, rather irreverent to the season I suppose, but for the sake of humor and a smile I give as I can recall how it goes. Again, I don’t know who the author was that wrote this, but I get a laugh every time I think of it and of course, repeat it to my daughter every Christmas Eve.
T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the hall;
Not a critter was moving, for they all hung on the wall.
With Ma in her calico and me in my skins,
I had uncorked the jug, tomorrow I would pay for my sins.
When outside the cabin I heard such a clatter;
I grabbed up on Betsy to see what was the matter.
I snapped back the frizzen and dumped powder in the pan,
For out by the fence was a jolly fat man.
As the moonlight glistened on the new fallen snow,
I saw eight set of antlers, they all looked aglow.
Them’s long hunter bucks I yelled to my wife,
And sighting down the barrel said, ‘get my skin’en knife!
Don’t shoot! Cried the Elf, oh how he shook,
These be my reindeer, are you as dumb as you look?
With a wink and a nod, he touched his finger to his cheek,
Then he reached in his sack and dumped my presents in the creek.
Now up Dasher and Dancer and the rest of his herd,
He called, as his sleigh rose in the air like a bird,
Merry Christmas to everyone, even to you,
I waved back, but kept thinking; “there goes my venison stew”.
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