I am not a fan of Christmas songs. Mostly because I am convinced that repeated exposure will lead to an increase in my A1C and then I’ll be diagnosed diabetic, which will mean I can’t eat all the foods I like. So, yesterday, while driving around, the local Classical Station played the first one of the season. I most particularly can’t have too few Christmas songs done as classical music with a big orchestra; it’s a waste of everything involved.
On a more serious note, "Do You Hear What I Hear" actually was written not so much for Christmas as a response to the Cuban missile crisis. But we can always adopt Philip Roth's theory that Jews took over secular holidays through Irving Berlin.
Courtesy of my older brother..."We three kings of Orient are, smoking on a rubber cigar, it was loaded, it exploded....BANG!!!!..." after which comes "We two kings of Orient are..."
Love this, Tom. Spare me from elevator -loop Christmas songs such as Jingle Bell Rock, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, etc., ad nauseum. If department stores would only realize how they drive us to online shopping.
I'm not a fan of the many forms of holiday excess. When I was a kid my family was unintentionally traumatized one year when my dad went to a Fathers' Night Only Shopping Night at Sears a week before Christmas where they had special ten-minute, limited supply sales on various items. Christmas morning my mother, three sisters and I all received identical bright red paisley bathrobes which my dad insisted we all try on. We did, and the place looked like a crime scene. But Dad was pleased so we soldiered on in them for hours, each of us trying to figure out how we'd lose the bathrobes at the earliest possible moment. At his insistence, we stood in a group singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" while Dad took several pictures of us. He was that proud. So there was nothing to do but keep wearing them until we outgrew them. To this day "Rudolph" makes me shudder when I hear it.
I love "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and all its participants. Thanks for the rec on Blount.
I am a Pittsburgh guy who can read without always moving his lips, and am therefore a lifelong, devoted fan of Roy Blount, whose book about the early good Steelers teams ("About Three Bricks Shy of a Load") is maybe the best sports book ever but also has the single greatest title in the history of all of literature (eat your heart out, Tolstoy!). I spent the Christmas vacation of 1976 working in a Charlottesville restaurant which had Christmas music on some early electronic loop, in consequence of which I cannot eat fried fish or hear Christmas music without trauma. Roy Blount is an American treasure.
Did enjoy. Like some noted below, there were some fun songs and genre, that got away from the elevator music that drives us nuts. I miss Crosby and Bennett, though, the later singing with Lady Gaga who lives up to her self-titeling.
Me too. She surprised me in A Star is Born and brought elegance to the first set and last show with Mr Bennett. When my daughter-in-law does The Weather Outside at the Mabel Tainter in their Christmas special n the Tony and Lady style I get all feeling good inside and naustalgic. Looking forward to that this season and her performance almost as much as my son's piano solo (yet to be announced) Just did a brag out didn't I?
That's really great, and your post hits me on a number of levels. My birthday is Christmas Eve, so I've always enjoyed Christmas, but not particularly the work involved in choosing and wrapping gifts. But lately, I've found it mostly just plain annoying. My kids are grown, my Mom is gone (just before last Christmas), and I can't really see the point. I live with my husband and my Dad. Dad has never much enjoyed Christmas, largely owing to past unpleasant family drama. He tries. My husband is very much into it; wants to drag out all the decorations and asks me to set them out and help decorate the tree. Ugh. I'm too busy with work to bother. I try. Last night, hubby insisted on playing Christmas music, too loud in my opinion, but Dad and I both tried to tune it out and not ruin his Christmas joy. Nobody likes to be accused of being Grinch. Tonight we're watching the Bronco football game, recorded from earlier, which is making me much happier.
As far as contributing to wonderful Christmas songs, I wish I could remember the name of the great song recorded by a pair of talk radio hosts on the main station broadcasting SF Giants games in SF in the early 80's: It had something to do with their favorite dish at Christmas dinner and all the crazy gross ingredients.... does anyone remember that?
Your Christmas song, absolutely made me picture my Dad, and made me laugh out loud - I'm sure he would too! I can't speak for Dad, but I'll get into the spirit, eventually, but I'm not a fan of being pushed into it.
Thanks for this Denise. My first wife hated Christmas but could never admit it, because her birthday was the day after. The one time she ever spoke of her feeling, she said she didn't know if people were really celebrating her birthday or just hung over from the day before. All of us in the Christmas Ain't So Great Club know each other. So, have a happy holiday somehow.
Oh yes, and I'm also diabetic, due to having half my pancreas removed thanks to some stinking cancer cells. So I get to only eyeball all the sweets and carbs I can't have. And the last few years, there has always been a major crisis in the last couple months of the year leaving me as jumpy as a cat on a... well, you know. Poor me! I do feel lucky to be around to complain!
My wife never appreciated the humor in Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, but now I can point to the equal and opposite misandry in Roy Blount Jr.’s Christmas song.
Run over by a reindeer? Electrocuted by a Christmas ornament? . . . Whats the difference?
We can agree on and highly recommend the Tuvan throat-sung version of Jingle Bells, on Bella Fleck’s Christmas album
Hands down, Robert Earl Keene's "Merry Christmas from the Family" says it all. Check it out on youtube, you won't be able to get it out of your head. You're welcome.
I would call this gem a “holiday” song. It’s a hoot. Christmas songs in my book have something to do with the birth of Jesus. Many of them are rather old, earlier than the 20th century. But there’s room for “holiday songs” of course.
OK, then you need "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgIwLeASnkw), and Tom Lehrer's great Christmas song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtZR3lJobjw), though before the big day you can go with his "Hanukkah in Santa Monica" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_3FjHEbdhc).
On a more serious note, "Do You Hear What I Hear" actually was written not so much for Christmas as a response to the Cuban missile crisis. But we can always adopt Philip Roth's theory that Jews took over secular holidays through Irving Berlin.
They certainly did!
Yes, those are all on my list of Good Christmas Songs.
Courtesy of my older brother..."We three kings of Orient are, smoking on a rubber cigar, it was loaded, it exploded....BANG!!!!..." after which comes "We two kings of Orient are..."
"Kids do the darndest things!" I laughed out loud.
Love this, Tom. Spare me from elevator -loop Christmas songs such as Jingle Bell Rock, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, etc., ad nauseum. If department stores would only realize how they drive us to online shopping.
Amen to that!
I'm not a fan of the many forms of holiday excess. When I was a kid my family was unintentionally traumatized one year when my dad went to a Fathers' Night Only Shopping Night at Sears a week before Christmas where they had special ten-minute, limited supply sales on various items. Christmas morning my mother, three sisters and I all received identical bright red paisley bathrobes which my dad insisted we all try on. We did, and the place looked like a crime scene. But Dad was pleased so we soldiered on in them for hours, each of us trying to figure out how we'd lose the bathrobes at the earliest possible moment. At his insistence, we stood in a group singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" while Dad took several pictures of us. He was that proud. So there was nothing to do but keep wearing them until we outgrew them. To this day "Rudolph" makes me shudder when I hear it.
I love "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and all its participants. Thanks for the rec on Blount.
Oh no, oh no - That's just Horrible! (Runs off to subscribe to the Roy Blount substack...)
I am a Pittsburgh guy who can read without always moving his lips, and am therefore a lifelong, devoted fan of Roy Blount, whose book about the early good Steelers teams ("About Three Bricks Shy of a Load") is maybe the best sports book ever but also has the single greatest title in the history of all of literature (eat your heart out, Tolstoy!). I spent the Christmas vacation of 1976 working in a Charlottesville restaurant which had Christmas music on some early electronic loop, in consequence of which I cannot eat fried fish or hear Christmas music without trauma. Roy Blount is an American treasure.
Did enjoy. Like some noted below, there were some fun songs and genre, that got away from the elevator music that drives us nuts. I miss Crosby and Bennett, though, the later singing with Lady Gaga who lives up to her self-titeling.
Yeah, that was a great pairing. She's more than I thought she was.
Me too. She surprised me in A Star is Born and brought elegance to the first set and last show with Mr Bennett. When my daughter-in-law does The Weather Outside at the Mabel Tainter in their Christmas special n the Tony and Lady style I get all feeling good inside and naustalgic. Looking forward to that this season and her performance almost as much as my son's piano solo (yet to be announced) Just did a brag out didn't I?
That's really great, and your post hits me on a number of levels. My birthday is Christmas Eve, so I've always enjoyed Christmas, but not particularly the work involved in choosing and wrapping gifts. But lately, I've found it mostly just plain annoying. My kids are grown, my Mom is gone (just before last Christmas), and I can't really see the point. I live with my husband and my Dad. Dad has never much enjoyed Christmas, largely owing to past unpleasant family drama. He tries. My husband is very much into it; wants to drag out all the decorations and asks me to set them out and help decorate the tree. Ugh. I'm too busy with work to bother. I try. Last night, hubby insisted on playing Christmas music, too loud in my opinion, but Dad and I both tried to tune it out and not ruin his Christmas joy. Nobody likes to be accused of being Grinch. Tonight we're watching the Bronco football game, recorded from earlier, which is making me much happier.
As far as contributing to wonderful Christmas songs, I wish I could remember the name of the great song recorded by a pair of talk radio hosts on the main station broadcasting SF Giants games in SF in the early 80's: It had something to do with their favorite dish at Christmas dinner and all the crazy gross ingredients.... does anyone remember that?
Your Christmas song, absolutely made me picture my Dad, and made me laugh out loud - I'm sure he would too! I can't speak for Dad, but I'll get into the spirit, eventually, but I'm not a fan of being pushed into it.
Thanks for this Denise. My first wife hated Christmas but could never admit it, because her birthday was the day after. The one time she ever spoke of her feeling, she said she didn't know if people were really celebrating her birthday or just hung over from the day before. All of us in the Christmas Ain't So Great Club know each other. So, have a happy holiday somehow.
Oh yes, and I'm also diabetic, due to having half my pancreas removed thanks to some stinking cancer cells. So I get to only eyeball all the sweets and carbs I can't have. And the last few years, there has always been a major crisis in the last couple months of the year leaving me as jumpy as a cat on a... well, you know. Poor me! I do feel lucky to be around to complain!
You're surviving for the good purpose of the things you bring here and to the others in your life.
Thank you. That means a lot. ♥️
My wife never appreciated the humor in Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, but now I can point to the equal and opposite misandry in Roy Blount Jr.’s Christmas song.
Run over by a reindeer? Electrocuted by a Christmas ornament? . . . Whats the difference?
We can agree on and highly recommend the Tuvan throat-sung version of Jingle Bells, on Bella Fleck’s Christmas album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgnud6S5m9A
and the video version of ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’, by Vince Vance and the Valiants, which
came out before Mariah Carey’s version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HWHd0EYJA
Wow, that's dark. As a certified Christmas curmudgeon, I love it. This is probably my least favorite time of year.
We're members of the same club - Scrooges of the World, Unite!
All of a sudden, I feel so out of place.
Please don't. I think people who are lucky enough to love Christmas are lucky indeed. I wish I was one of you.
To the Scrooge family ~ the lot of you!
Oh, the jingling bells are ringing, can't you hear?
But some grin and mock, thinking they're oh so clever,
In a world decked in tinsel, they sneer at the cheer,
Forgetting that Christmas lasts forever.
Boys and girls, with smirks so wide,
Laughing at carols, in their seasonal sass,
But beware, my dears, for the Yuletide,
Has a way of biting you in the... ahem, ass.
Those who mock the merry songs of old,
Find their stockings filled with coal, not gold,
And as they scoff at every "Ho Ho Ho,"
Their holiday spirit shrinks, oh so low.
For each "Jingle Bells" they dare to tease,
A Christmas cookie loses its sweet ease,
Each "Silent Night" scorned and tossed,
Brings a December frost, oh so lost.
So remember, you sassy, sarcastic band,
Christmas has a magic, vast and grand,
Respect the carols, the old and the new,
Or Yuletide's tricks will surely find you!
And to those who roll their eyes at "Frosty",
Beware, for your hot cocoa might just turn frosty,
For every "Fa la la" you dare to disdain,
You might just find yourself in a candy cane chain.
So laugh and jest at those festive tunes,
But remember, Christmas has its own boons,
For those who honor its merry sound,
Find joy and love, all year round.
Hands down, Robert Earl Keene's "Merry Christmas from the Family" says it all. Check it out on youtube, you won't be able to get it out of your head. You're welcome.
Here's a relatively recent, acoustic version. Fabulous! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqN483jm6JE
I'm so sorry - but a great deal of the "issue" IS not being able to get it out of your head! NO thank you!!!!!
I would call this gem a “holiday” song. It’s a hoot. Christmas songs in my book have something to do with the birth of Jesus. Many of them are rather old, earlier than the 20th century. But there’s room for “holiday songs” of course.
Thanks Tom - I think thats a keeper (along with Grandma got run over by a Reindeer!
I'd rather eat the sweet stuff too!
❤️😂