Every year university mascots audition for roles in the Mascot Carolers’ Yule Tour. The most celebrated contender wins the privilege of pushing the buttons on the quartet’s karaoke machine. This year, Sammy the Banana Slug triumphed over the Fighting Pickle, who, along with Boilermaker Pete and Bucky Badger, will mime “Little Drummer Boy” and “Silent Night” to the instrumental accompaniment of the music box. Mascots live by a code, which includes a codicil that forbids speech. When the choir appears before a front door decorated with evergreen wreaths and festive strands of tinsel, the members move their lips in an inaudible rendition of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” And “Santa Baby.” The Fighting Pickle performs handstands during the “golden rings” verse from “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and the Badger tosses piñatas in the air for the Boilermaker to swat with his hammer. The naked apes who receive the fête tremble with awe beneath their porch lights, applauding the vocal restraint of the mascots. The aficionados might even dispense rum balls or paper cups filled with spiked egg nog to keep the revelers’ blood warm on frigid December nights. The less fortunate neighbors listen with their ears pressed against picture windows, while their children try to guess the songs based on the mummer’s antics. But mascots can be ornery in their mothballed suits. None of them ever sings the same song together at the same time.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana where he is looking for a dog to adopt. His poems have appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Lion and Lilac, The Parliament Literary Journal, and Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan. Poems are forthcoming in Gargoyle, Jasper's Folly Poetry Journal, and Syncopation Literary Journal.