The Twelve Days of Christmas



Original block print by Caitlin Owen Hunter 1996©

The Midnight Barn

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
--Thomas Hardy

We were late returning home on Christmas Eve. There were many rituals to observe before a sleepy little girl would surrender to sleep, so it was nearly eleven before I got out to the barn to do the evening milking. But, as I told my family, I never mind being out in the barn late on Christmas Eve. That is the night legend says the animals kneel down and speak of the birth of Jesus. In the midnight barn, miracles happen.

The stars are especially bright as I walk down to the barn over the crunchy snow -- the same stars that shone down on Bethlehem so many years ago. Through the cold of the winter night they shine more clearly and closely than the rest of the year. Perhaps I can reach up and touch them.

Usually when I am late, the goats are quite vocal with their impatience, and line up at the gate, jostling for position. This night, though, all is peaceful in the barn. Caprine faces, peacefully chewing cuds, turn and look at me. Four cat faces observe me solemnly from the rafters of the milking parlor as I go about the business of assembling the milking equipment. Fur fluffed up with the cold, yet sleek and healthy, these cats have become our best allies on the farm, restoring equilibrium in the pest balance.

Two by two, the milking does file out to be milked. I dole out an extra measure of grain in exchange for the gifts the animals bring. I choose not to break the peace of the night with the clatter of the milking machine, and milk by hand instead. I can hear the radio easily; Christmas carols play. Warm milk swishes into the bucket. I repeat the same motions generations of farmers have before me. The scent of fresh pine shavings fills the barn; extra bedding is another Christmas gift to the animals.

Were there goats in that barn in Bethlehem? Did they share their hay with the Christ Child? Each animal in that long-ago barn made his gift to the Christ Child. The farm animals continue to give the same gifts to us: milk, meat, fiber, eggs.

As each doe is finished, she returns to her corner of the barn, reclaiming a nest made in the shavings. The bred does are growing round. Soon, I'll be spending more midnights in the barn, as kidding season approaches. The miracle of newborn kids in the midnight barn.

The dry yearlings are fed next, also unusually calm and quiet. Even the hens that are usually underfoot are roosting drowsily. The entire barn population seems to be quietly anticipating something beyond what I bring.

I begin to feel that I am intruding. I finish sweeping up, shut off the lights, and wish the animals a Merry Christmas. The rooster crows when the lights are extinguished .

They may not have spoken in words that others can understand, but I hear their message of love and peace, there in the dark quiet of the midnight barn.

Copyright 1996 by Caitlin Owen Hunter
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