The Shit No One Tells You About Poodles

The Christmas Poodle

No Christmas is complete without the poodle. They are essential, especially at Christmas. The Christmas poodle has a strong agenda of helping with the gift shopping, if not in the store then waiting patiently in the back seat of the car and carefully sniffing inside the gift bags, sometimes whole head in the bag with ears splayed, to show approval for said purchases. (One must be careful to have Santa purchase or acquire poodle gifts on a separate trip or the jig is up.)

The Christmas poodle will obviously want to start the holidays by having his hair done by a professional, not on the kitchen island (like other times of year), which lacks in both decorum and sense of occasion. No, the poodle will want the full shampoo, clip, brush and blow out, and then a set of posed photos to display to friends and family. The poodle saves up his allowance and hard-earned people dollars from a year of pandering to––and pampering––family members, and uses these funds to cover the cost of the coif. He is not sure why it isn’t the other way around. Why doesn’t the groomer have to pay for the privilege of being able to groom such a patient and beautiful creature?

The following days are filled with decorating, directing daddy as to how to place the lights on the tree by the road, that daddy fusses over way too much. However the Christmas poodle will faithfully sit in wait on a patch of tufted grass as daddy curses his frozen fingers, torn flesh, torn fabric and final victory over faulty technology, light strings, broken plugs, and chewed-by-mice extension cords that cause things to fizz or pop. In spite of it all the poodle will give a congratulatory and victorious jumping-upon-daddy when heading back to the house for a warm cup of well-earned tea.

Over the days the house is filled with strange smells and it is incumbent upon the poodle to familiarize himself with flavours like nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, if not to taste then at least to smell. Poodles have very discerning taste buds and do not eat just anything; a wee taste is usually sufficient, just to satisfy that curiosity.

The poodle will inevitably be part, a large part, of the wrapping of gifts. No activity in the house goes unnoticed at this time of year. No sound of crinkling paper, tape being ripped or scissor being placed quietly on the floor or table, will get past the sharpened senses or curiosity of the poodle. Not even if the poodle is sound asleep dreaming of leading Santa’s sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. It is important that the poodle is present and has a free paw for ribbon-tying and perhaps a piggy to hold the bow in place while daddy ties it.

For some strange reason the wrapped objects are placed underneath the thing that looks similar to the trees outside but has no natural scent other than the perfume of Christmases past. This placing of gifts can lead to pained curiosity and sometimes the daddy has to place those particularly yummy smelling gifts, which were secretly wrapped upstairs in the bedroom, up on a table.

During this time, spirits are bright and the daddies put a towel on the poodle’s head and tell him he is ready for the Christmas pageant, though such things are foreign to poodles. They might even go so far as to tell the poodle that poodles were also present by the manger. They tell the Christmas poodle that he is the lamb of God though they know not much about god or lambs for that matter even though they live in the country. When they don’t call him this, they say things like best friend in the whole world.

Christmas morning is never an occasion for sleeping-in, even though Daddy got to bed late, after falling asleep on the sofa watching something called ‘A Christmas Carol’ on that thing they call a TV. It is time to get to the tree. Ah the three where one gets to work with the unwrapping. This is where the Christmas poodle shines. No gift goes untouched or un-helped by the deft nosings and dexterous nibblings and tuggings of the poodle. Wrapping paper is carefully removed from objects to display pleasing-to-humans kinds of things, scented candles, soap, things people like to hold in their hands and read––books. But best of all are the bags of doggy cookies, beef sticks and treats that Santa managed to leave without the poodle having even an inkling. Santa is clever and loves the Christmas poodle since he is the only one in the household who gets real authentic Santa gifts––not to mention never being naughty at all.

If the Christmas poodle goes to the city at all over the holidays it is usually to a festive place, a home or even a hotel. Poodles love hotels. There is always lots to do in a hotel, lots of strange smells for sure and a ton of attention, especially on a crowded elevator where everyone wants to pet the Christmas poodle on the head––on his perfectly coifed topknot––and pay him lots of compliments. The Christmas poodle loves sitting in the lobby too and drawing lots of attention his way and chatting with passers-by. One particularly memorable Christmas the hotel went to the trouble of placing an enormous gingerbread house in the lobby near the chairs in which his daddy likes to sit. While daddy marvelled at the loveliness of the lobby, the sounds of the puppy-poodle-choir singing Christmas songs, the Christmas poodle kept himself quite quiet, and busy, by nibbling on the corner of the gingerbread house. It was the perfect consistency for poodle teeth, nice and crunchy, though the icing was a little too sweet. But the bigger prize was a discarded pizza crust found under the giant Christmas tree.

At home, Christmas morning is filled with cooking and a busy kitchen but usually the Christmas poodle has enough treats to keep his tummy filled until dinner. But before then there are walks in the snow, maybe wearing a new sweater or booties. Then ah, dinner! Even though daddy has toiled to make himself a vegan turkey, there is nothing but the real thing for the Christmas poodle, maybe with some sweet potato (though it has a tendency to get stuck in the poodle’s ears), and brussels sprouts as the vegetable of choice for the health conscious and hungry Christmas poodle.

Finally, a drowsiness will descend and the magic of Christmas will be nothing but a memory as night falls over the Christmas poodle’s home. The lights will glow in the dark and small flakes of snow will be caught in the reflections in the walk. The poodle might dream and he’ll dream that next Christmas the gifts will be different. The music will be different too. Daddies might sit in silence and look at a lovely picture of the Christmas Poodle that graces the mantle, with lovely little candles. And his daddy won’t watch ‘A Christmas Carol’ because the scene of the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come showing old Scrooge how sad Bob Cratchit is with Tiny Tim now gone, will make his daddy sad, much, much too sad.

The lamb of God––the Christmas poodle––will become a little bright angel to watch over and remind his daddies that part of the magic and mystery of life is that the love and the memories, once created, will always be there.