Little Grey Rabbit’s Christmas

Alison Uttley • read by Marilyn Fardoe

Up the lane came a little group, carrying rolls of music and pipes of straw. They talked softly as they walked up to the closed door of Grey Rabbit’s house. They arranged themselves in a circle, they coughed and cleared their throats and held up their music to the moonlight.

“Now then, altogether!” cried an important-looking rabbit, playing a note on his straw pipe. “One, two, three!” and with their noses in the air they began to sing in small squeaky voices this Christmas carol.

“Holly red and mistletoe white,

The stars are shining with golden light,

Burning like candles this Holy Night,

Holly red and mistletoe white.”

“Hush! What’s that noise?” cried Hare, dropping his mistletoe.

“It’s the Waits!” said Grey Rabbit, and she held up her wooden spoon.

They flung wide the door, and saw the little group of rabbits and hedgehogs, peering at their sheets of music.

“Come in! Come in !” cried Grey Rabbit. “Come in and sing by the fireside. You look frozen with the cold.”

“We’re all right”, said a big rabbit, “but a warm drink would wet our whistles.”

Grey Rabbit took from the fire the two-handled Christmas mug of primrose wine, and the carollers passed it around. Then they stood by the fire and sang all the songs they knew: “The Moon shines bright”, “I saw three ships a-sailing” and “Green grows the holly”.

“Now we must be off,” they said, when Grey Rabbit had given them hot mince pies. “We have to sing at all the rabbit houses tonight. Good-night. Happy Christmas!”