I spent Christmas day with the sparrow family this year.

A humble and yet heartfelt reminder of God's blessing was the sparrow's table. Mother Sparrow labored tirelessly to build a feast for her hungry and happy nest. They were peeping and fighting all night long with nearly no rest coming to them until just at the midnight hour. Some of them still believe in Santa and the other ones tease them that they are going to stay up all night to show them that he is not for real. The argument escalated into a fight and mother sparrow had to give them each a pluck with her right wing to calm them down and make them mind. They were quiet after that, not a peep out of them until the morning.
Father Sparrow was in the stores until the breaking of the day. They got tired, mother and father and wanted to sleep, but there was still all of that wrapping to do. Each little peep got a perfectly wrapped Walnut shell box with a bow on it filled with something heartsent and thoughtfully devised by father sparrow. He considers it his yuletide blessing to donn their holiday with a gift that bestows a prayer to God for them and an intention of his heart for their usefulness in the world. They tried to explain to me the meanings of the gifts, but it loses
something in the translation. All of the peeps seemed ecstatic to open the gift and see, a worm and a twig and a sesame seed and some of the other little items that he could stuff into a walnut shell. I really don't know how he found all of those shells the week before Christmas, with all of the stores so swamped?