Christmas is coming

Photo by Sarah Phelan

A skein of geese flew over at sunset tonight. Their Christmas Eve honking, and the memory of the woman begging for change outside the store today, made me think of that line about geese and charity in "Christmas is Coming," a nursery rhyme that carolers used to sing when I was a kid in England:

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you!