Twas the Night Before Christmas

Tomorrow night is gallery stroll in Salt Lake City. It's moved up from the 3rd Friday to the first because it could end up on Christmas or too close to it. To celebrate this festive season I did a version of the Night Before Christmas. It is the cat lovers version. :-) I collaged the poem onto the painting. It goes like this;

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all thru the house
The reindeer were sneezing and so was the mouse,
The stockings were hung by kids everywhere,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

But Rudolf was nestled all snug in his bed
While visions of headache danced all over his head,
Mrs. Claus shook her head - it was just a cold (perhaps?)
“NO! NO! NO! “ Wailed Santa about to collapse;

Santa moaned “Christmas Eve, that’s what’s the matter,
How can I give gifts without reindeer clatter?
All the reindeer have caught a fever in a flash,
And NOW is the time for the Christmas Eve dash”.

He looked bleakly outside at the new fallen snow
The moon gave mid-day luster to objects below.
When what to Santa’s surprised eyes should appear,
But his own lovely sleigh with eight fuzzy cats near;

They all frolicked and played so lively and quick,
An idea occurred to the stressed St. Nick;
“With Christmas magic these cats can be game!”
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;

“Now Pumpkin, now Muffy, now Felix and Nixen,
Come Cubby, come Cupid, come Meow-Meow and Kitzen!
To the elfs for sprinkles of flying dust on all
You will save Christmas Eve” (and such a close call!)

He harnessed the Kitties, they were ready to fly,
As the excitement mounted they took to the sky;
So up to the house top those kittens they flew
With a sleigh full of toys and St. Nicholas too.

A wink of Santa’s eye, and a twist of his head,
Around the world on Christmas Eve they sped.
Santa spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
He filled all the stockings with plenty of perk.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,
He gave the cats a nod, to the sky they rose!
The cats saved the day, Santa gave them a whistle,
He thanked them with gifts of catnip and thistle

They heard Santa exclaim to everyone in his sight;
“Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”
Adaption of the Night before Christmas by
Catherine Darling Hostetter

Regarding the painting, I had so much fun painting the Noah's ark one using my kids for models, I decided to use a friend for this one. If you are one of my local artist friends, can you guess who? What gave me the idea to use this person is he is always telling me how he likes to take friends pictures and change them in photoshop into something funny. So I thought he would be a good candidate for Santa.

Come to Local Colors and see the original - it would be great to see you at stroll! Or if you don't live in Salt Lake, I will be selling prints of this painting on Etsy.