The twenty-sixth day before Christmas

From The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter:

But it is in the old story that all the beasts can talk, in the night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the morning (though there are very few folk that can hear them, or know what it is that they say).

When the Cathedral clock struck twelve there was an answer like an echo of the chimes and Simpkin heard it, and came out of the tailor's door, and wandered about in the snow.

From all the roofs and gables and old wooden houses in Gloucester came a thousand merry voices singing the old Christmas rhymes all the old songs that ever I heard of, and some that I don't know, like Whittington's bells.

Here's the watercolor of Simpkin wandering about in the snow. Gutenburg.org has many of the Potter books posted online with the pictures

The legend of the talking beasts is one of my favorite Christmas themes.  Among the special stack of Christmas books that only came down from the shelf in December, we had a picture book (a Little Golden Book, perhaps?) of the carol "The Friendly Beasts," and I believe Twin Sister and I sang it at the candlelight service before we were old enough to be embarrassed by singing in public.