Funday Furkids: Fourth Day of Catmas

While the Furkids team stuck with the traditional Days Two and Three gifts, they present their own creations from Day Four onwards. Early versions of the song have shown a considerable variation in the wording of line 4. The 1780 version has “four colly birds” —colly being a regional English expression for black like coal.

In the 19th century, “canary birds”, “colour’d birds”, “curley birds” and “corley birds” are found in its place. Frederic Austin’s 1909 version also altered the fourth day’s gift to four “calling” birds, and this variant has become the most popular, although “colly” is still found.

The Furkids have a new variant and, in a break with tradition, it doesn’t start with C. Instead they moved on to the next letter in the alphabet – though I doubt they realise their choice is also the name of a rather nice cocktail… which, come to think of it, would be a pleasant alternative to eggnog. Here’s the recipe from Stay At Home Mum if you want to try it:

Ingredients

• 15 ml Cointreau
• 30 ml Advocaat
• 30 ml Orange Juice
• 30 White Rum
• 30 ml Cream
• 1 cup Lemonade or more!

For the name of the cocktail – and the fourth day gift – press play and scroll down to the lyrics to see what it is!

If you missed any of the previous posts, you can catch up with them here:
First Day of Catmas
Second Day of Catmas
Third Day of Catmas