Christmas Outside of Eden

This is the story the robins tell as they huddle beneath the holly on
the Eve of Christmas. They have told it every Christmas Eve since the
world started. They commenced telling it long before Christ was born,
for their memory goes further back than men's. The Christmas which they
celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight of its gold-locked
doors.

The robins have only two stories: one for Christmas and one for Easter.
Their Easter story is quite different. It has to do with how they got
the splash of red upon their breasts. It was when God's son was hanging
on the cross. They wanted to do something to spare him. They were too
weak to pull out the nails from his feet and hands; so they tore their
little breasts in plucking the thorns one by one from the crown that had
been set upon his forehead. Since then God has allowed their breasts to
remain red as a remembrance of His gratitude.