Massacre of the Innocents

Today is the 4th day of Christmas.  The day when your true love gives you some blackbirds (Colly means coal coloured) and if you believe the myth about the song being some kind of warped aide-memoir for hiding Catholics you remember that this represents the four gospels of the bible. Colly is a northern word and so by the beginning of the 1900s it had already been changed from it's original publication in Mirth without Mischief (1780) to canary birds, coloured birds, curly birds and calling birds.  This is also supposedly the day that Herod had baby boys in Bethlehem murdered, hence the day also being known as the Massacre of the Innocents.  In Spanish speaking countries this is an April fools kind of day, where it is expected that people will play jokes on each other.

Personally, I think it is a very appropriately named day.  The 4th or 5th continuous day spent with your loved ones, listening to their opinions on stuff, watching programmes on the TV that you wouldn't consider (like football) can make a person a little irritable.  Add to that falling asleep on the sofa in funny positions and waking with a crick in the neck, eating enough cheese to cause you to turn into a mouse and trying (unsuccessfully to exchange ill-fitting Christmas presents) causes that irritability to turn into a simmering, festering bowl of resentment and fury.

Innocent phrases like, "What for dinner?", "Have you got a moment?", "Have you seen my socks?" and "Muuuuuuum!" suddenly feel like they have been designed for your torment.

I appear to be holding a knife.

It must be the day.