In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he is Parson Brown...
Been hearing that song a lot lately, of course, and that particular snatch of lyric always puts me in mind of a misconception I held as a small child.
I didn't know the word "parson," so I ran with what I did know and just assumed that "parson brown" was a color -- in fact, a particular shade. You know -- dark brown, chocolate brown, parson brown.
Apparently my young mind required only some interpretation of individual words, but not that they make any logical sense. I do not recall ever wondering why someone would make a snowman and then pretend it was brown.
There was another Christmas song that forced me to rethink when I got older. From it, I concluded that history was some sort of deep hole in the ground because, as the song said, Rudolph was going to go down in it.
If only my mind was as supple now as it was then.
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