New verse to Jingle Bells

Last night, several hours after Madison had gone to sleep, she appeared in the office where David and I were working. She looked awfully awake, but she wasn’t really awake.

“I think I’ve really accomplished a lot,” she mumbled, as I steered her toward the bathroom.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve made a new verse,” she said. “To…” her forehead wrinkled. “I can’t think. Snowbells? No. That’s not right. To Jingle Bells.”

I figured she’d been dreaming about writing new verses to Jingle Bells. Okay, whatever. I was amused, but I didn’t ask her more because I wanted her to go back to sleep.

This morning, I asked her if she remembered what she said to me. “I think I told you about writing the alternate verse to Jingle Bells,” she said.

“Right! You were dreaming about writing verses to Jingle Bells?”

“No, I was doing it before I went to sleep. Here it is!” and she recited to me:

I was just adding yeast
To our great big Christmas feast
But when the very first guests arrived,
The cooking quickly ceased.
First came Auntie Pat
And then our Uncle Lou
And then our cousin Dan arrived
With his big sister Sue.

“Did you write that down?” I asked.

“Nope, I just remembered it,” she said. “I made up another half verse, but I kind of lost it.”

“Well, I’m going to write it down,” I said. “That’s going in the Book of Madison.”