I Want a Protoceratops for Christmas!

I have spoken before about my complete lack of musical ability, which clashes savagely with my occasional desire to write lyrics.  Thus, like the hermit crab which runs, soft and vulnerable across the sea floor in search of a shell, I scuttle along looking for tunes into which I can fit my words.

We’re rapidly approaching Christmas, with its rich musical traditions, traditions to which I can attach myself like a remora to a giant holly-covered whale.  As for a subject, it being Christmas, it is time, as our forebears and ancestors have done for centuries, to update my Amazon wishlist.  The usual gamut of books, DVDs, board games will be on there, but this year I’d like something else as well.  I want a Protoceratops!

If you’ve never had the good fortune to be five years old, and therefore never learnt everything there is to know about dinosaurs (knowledge which five year olds instinctively come to), or it was so long ago that you’ve lost all of your dinosaurian lore, you may be unfamiliar with this little dinosaur, relative to the much larger and much more famous Triceratops, and so cuddly that even the notoriously vicious Velociraptor wanted to give them a hug.  Here’s a picture:

Awww!  Look at him!  Let’s face it, now you want one too don’t you?

Well even if you don’t, I do, and I have composed a song on the subject, to be sung to the tune of ‘I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’:

I want a Protoceratops for Christmas!

I want a protoceratops for Christmas!

Only a protoceratops will do!

I don’t want a great big tyrannosaur,

I want a protoceratops to play with and adore!

I want a protoceratops for Christmas!

Unlikely as it may well seem to you!

Don’t just say no, don’t think I haven’t thinked,

That protoceratopses are a little bit extinct!

I want a protoceratops for Christmas!

I ‘m sure that Santa Claus will find a way!

For this my best behaviour I will pledge,

And with just a little work, he’ll fit him on the sledge.

I want a protoceratops for Christmas,

I’ll take him out for walks around the town!

People’s eyes will widen, their knees will go all weak,

When they see his pretty scales and his lovely little beak!

I can see me now on Christmas morning,

Opening the door!

Oh what joy, and what surprise,

When I open up my eyes

To see a lovely little dinosaur!

I want a protoceratops for Christmas!

Only a protoceratops will do!

I don’t want a fat stegosaurus stenopses,

I only like protoceratopses!

And protoceratopses like me too!