Over on "Thinking The Lions," I've started up today what will ultimately be recognized as The Greatest Xmas Story Ever Told -- because I subtitled it that way, so you're bound by it. I know my rights! -- and with that story unfolding, I have decided to spread my wings here a bit and include a song that may or may not be Christmas-y depending on how you look at it:
Song 17 is Nella Fantasia, by Ennio Morricone and Chiara Ferrau:
And in that version it's performed by the Gimnazija Kranj Girls Choir at their Christmas concert.
There's a bit of legend behind that song: Morricone wrote the song Gabriel's Oboe in 1986 for the film The Mission, and from there Sarah Brightman says that she wrote Morricone every other month until he consented to let her add lyrics to it -- but most people credit the lyrics to Ferrau, instead.
The singers are singing in Italian, which I'm told is a real language. I learn something new every day! In English, according to Wikipedia, the lyrics translate to:
In my imagination I see a fair world, Everyone lives in peace and in honesty there. I dream of souls that are always free,Like the clouds that fly, Full of humanity in the depths of the soul.
In my imagination I see a bright world, Even the night is less dark there. I dream of souls that are always free,Like clouds that fly.
In my imagination there exists a warm wind, That breathes on the cities, like a friend. I dream of souls that are always free,Like clouds that fly, Full of humanity in the depths of the soul.
Which seems to me to be as Christmas-y as lots of other songs, if not moreso, and so I'm including it.
Then song 18 is Angels We Have Heard On High, by
I'm picking that song because it was my mom's favorite song. My mom's birthday is December 15, and she would have been 66 yesterday, had she not passed away two years ago just after Christmas. It's not my favorite version of that song, but it's a version I think she would approve of, and so I'm posting it here. I make a lot of jokes about my mom's Christmas rules and the effort she put into them, but the truth is that she loved Christmas a lot and wanted it to be special every year, and despite all the hassles, it was. Part of why I run my own Christmases the way I do is that I know that no matter how hard I try, I'll never recapture the feeling of those early childhood Christmases, when my mom would make her fudge and lemon squares and press cookies, and they were laid out on the silver, double-tiered cookie tray on our kitchen table with it's used-at-Christmas-only green tablecloth, and the entire family would come over and spend the night laughing and joking and singing Christmas carols and playing ping-pong and once, even, Santa came to our party and we all thought at first he was just Uncle Doug in a costume, but Uncle Doug was there, too.
Trying to recreate that would cheapen the memory and never be possible; those memories are shiny because they are memories. Now, I try to create my own special memories for my own family so that someday, they can sit and remember, amongst all the snarky comments, that there were some great times, too.
*sniff.*
Must be some dust in the air.
On to the snark: The Best Santas, Etc., which, remember, I'm listing here each day, too, and today's Best Santa Or Whatever is...
...Larry Stewart.
You don't know Larry Stewart, probably, but you should.
Every year, there is a Secret Santa in a city who goes around handing out $100 bills to people at random on the street.
This year, in Reading, PA, a man walked around handing out $100 bills to people, and sometimes praying with them; he got on a bus and passed out hundred-dollar bills like they were candy canes.
In that article I linked to, Stewart says he remembered a time he hadn't eaten for two days and went into a diner and pretended he'd lost his wallet; the owner came out and pretended he'd found a $20 bill and bought him the meal.
Years later, Stewart says, he went back and gave that diner owner $10,000. And so on. No tax breaks are gained by handing out money to random strangers. Stewart just did it for the sake of helping others.
I'm not rich. But if I ever am, I'll do stuff like that. This year, we used a chunk of our money we had and not only gave all the people involved with our twins $20 each -- right down to the bus drivers-- but we got one of those "Giving Tree" cards and bought the kid "Xbox 360 Batman: Arkham Asylum" and I'm going to give some presents to the Shaw twins I keep haranguing everyone about. I have a lot of good stuff in my life; other people need some good stuff in theirs.
For over two weeks now, I have been making a SUPERbig deal over Xmas! And I've done that for years now -- at the end of this post is a collection of all the "Best" things I've ever posted about Christmas here on this blog; looking it over, you can tell I've got a problem.
I make such a big deal about Xmas because I love Christmas. I love the food and the songs and the decorations and the movies and I'm even so nuts that I like Christmas shopping.
I am Crazy for Christmas. Xrazy for Xmas, you might say, if you were lame like I am.
So when challenged by Grumpy Bulldog's Bah, Humbug Blahgfest to come up with not one, not two, not i number of things, but twelve whole things that I hate about Christmas -- or, as I've been calling it this year, Xmas-- you'd think that'd be hard for me, since I'm practically a Xmas Superhero by now.*
*(Xmasman! With the powers of... tinsel?)
**(Well, that was a letdown. When I started typing that sentence I had high hopes my brain would finish strong. But tinsel? Really, brain? That's all you've got? Thanks for nothing.)
But it's not hard at all, because for all its good points... Xmas has lots of good points, remember, including but not limited to:
1. Egg nog.
2. Presents
3. More and more Xmas-shaped Snickers' bars.
And probably other good things, too, but those will have to suffice, since my brain has not yet punched in for work today.
For all its good points, Xmas has lots of bad points, too. Bad points which I will in this post list for you, in handy list form, which I've found to be the best form for listing things. (I used to use more exotic forms for listing things, like this form:
That's the ryu zin origami, and it's said to be the hardest form of origami, a form so hard that it posed a challenge when I just wanted to make, say, a grocery list, so I eventually stopped using origami forms to list things and started just using list forms, which is actually kind of unlucky for you because imagine if I had done this post in brilliant origami shapes and mailed them out to people who would then get a little Christmas-y themed essay shaped in some fancy origami-esque way. That would be phenomenal! What a great heartwarming story! In fact, it could be a Xmas story: something about people getting origami shapes, throw in a subplot where the guy has a troubled marriage and the woman's dad's business is failing, and then the shape they get is made of hundred dollar bills so they have a kid and save the business and fall in love and decorate a tree.
A Folding Paper Xmas, next year on Hallmark. It'll write itself.*3
*3 It better, because again, brain, What the H? "Something about people getting origami shapes?" Really? Are you even awake in there?
On with the list! Which you'll note, from the title, is not just complaining about stuff, but is also presenting fixes for that stuff. There's a reason for that, and the reason is:
I think I'm better than everyone else and know how to fix things way better than you, plus I make fun of you behind your back.
No, wait, I wasn't supposed to admit that. Lemme try again. There's a reason for that, and the reason is:
Why don't you just be honest with them?
I am going to have to take a lot less Nyquil before writing stuff like this. Or a lot more.
One more time: There's a reason for that, and the reason is:
I'm not a complainer?
Sure, let's go with that, my own personal Jiminy $#(#%&$ Cricket. I'll pretend I'm not a complainer, and will then complain about stuff while suggesting ways to fix it, because as everyone knows, the best way complain about things is to pretend you're not complaining about something but that you're actually okay with it but, you know, it could be better, so, just saying.... Try that on your own, with your boss' ideas, or your friend's apartment decorating, or your wife's personal grooming habits.*4
*4 It's okay, I've checked: That latter one is not actually grounds for divorce, so flame on!
So in the spirit of the season, I'm not going to just complain, I'm going to also propose a fix, or "solution", in science-y talk, for each of the Twelve Worst Things About Xmas!
Hey, how about that list, finally?
I'll get you later, brain.
The List!
1. The spirit of the season and other crap like that.
Problem Number One, or numero uno, in science-y talk, with Christmas is just what I started with here (that's why lists are so great!): The spirit of the season, which is a fancy way of saying "I'm just going to justify this by saying "It's Xmas, so here goes with whatever I want to do."
This has been an growing problem for a long time -- part of the reason for it being that Christmas, as a holiday, tends to swell larger each year like a hideous boil that's just waiting to be lanced but nobody has the guts.*5
*5 We'll see who gets who. Enjoy your imagery. Signed, your brain (a/k/a "Jiminy $#(#%&$ Cricket")
That constant growth of Xmas allows people to just cram any old thing they want into the season, as I pointed out the other day when I mentioned that Love, Actually announced that "Christmas is when you tell the truth."
"Love, Actually" seemed to actually (ha!) be making fun of that trend with the story line about the singer and his song "Christmas Is All Around Us" but the joke was on them, because that song actually (ha!) became a Christmas staple; it got played, apparently unironically, on my Pandora station the other day, just sitting there amongst all the Run Run Rudolphs I have to keep thumbsdowning (which is a verb now, because everything is a verb now.)
(Verbs are the Xmas of words.)
(Adverbs are the Arbor Day of words, which is weird because Arbor Day is actually the gerund of holidays.)
(There's no justice in the world.)
Christmas has become the ultimate enabler. Want another snack? It's Xmas, I might as well have a cookie. Need to spend more than you make? I have to buy Xmas gifts! Thinking it might not be a bad idea to do that fifth shot in front of your boss? It is. It's a terrible idea. But it's the Xmas party! Wearing a Santa hat while you drive to work? It's Xmas! Have a sense of humor!
Whatever it is, we can justify it with Xmas! Heck, Christine O'Donnell just endorsed Mitt Romney -- and that, I'm almost certain, was brought on by Christmas. Or a need to stay in the public eye. Which is pretty much the same thing.
Who should we blame for this? No good fix-it-up plan would be a good fix-it-up plan without first doing the most important part of fixing something: blaming someone else. That's our God-given right as Americans. USA! USA! USA!
This exists.
And nothing is more American, and nothing is more in the keeping of the Xmas spirit, than blaming Hollywood, which has repeatedly, over the years, shown us that Xmas is about everything in the entire world. Xmas is about not just such traditional stuff as family or God or peace, which things, let's face it, are a little outdated. (Have you noticed how old-fashioned God is? I mean, the guy's been around for longer than time has been around.)
Hollywood, not content to let the world live in peace with its families and make fun of God, Hollywood has crammed everything possible into Christmas, which by now includes, as its meaning, not just telling Keira Knightley the truth about your inexplicable crush on her since she's not that hot, but also includes curing alcoholism and chronic criminality with the help of a practically-orphaned kid, making sure your kids' adventures in New York City don't result in their deaths, keeping Santa from taking the year off because he's got a cold, and even just plain cash, as shown by the beloved holiday special "A Charlie Brown Christmas With An Overtly Religious Theme That Would Never, Ever, Be Able To Be Broadcast These Days Because We've All Completely Lost Our Ability To Place Things In Perspective":
Sally: [dictating her letter to Santa Claus as Charlie Brown writes it for her] Dear Santa Claus, How have you been? Did you have a nice summer?
[Charlie Brown looks at her]
Sally: How is your wife? I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want.
Charlie Brown: Oh brother.
Sally: Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money. How about tens and twenties?
Charlie Brown: TENS AND TWENTIES? Oh, even my baby sister!
Sally: All I want is what I... I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.
The Fix: You know how people who want to lose weight trick themselves into thinking that they can lose weight by doing something really easy and fun, like eating lots of bacon and calling that a diet, or ordering the Abdomenizer and swearing they'll use it because you can look like a Navy Seal in just three minutes per week? Aren't those people funny?
NO! Because they're you! In the immortal words of Pogo, we have seen the enemy and he is us! (I think Pogo said that. But it should be the Republican Party motto.)
There's no easy cure for this one; it is the top thing on the list, after all. So I'm afraid the cure is going to be drastic -- more drastic, even, than admitting that a diet that is premised primarily on "shakes" is not actually a diet.
(I see what you're doing here, brain. I'm on to you.)
The cure is to take Modern Xmas back to its roots and start all over again. We've got to cut off all the dreck and re-grow Modern Xmas from scratch, or something science-y like that. Which means getting back to basics, basics being What Xmas was before we got all manic about it.
As every good scientist knows, our Modern Xmas is based completely on "A Christmas Carol," which, just as Star Wars does for Western Culture, serves as the foundation for every single thing we think, do, say, feel, or wear. From A Christmas Carol, we get our "traditions" of "loving people" and "shopping" (Scrooge literally threw money out the window!) and "not letting children die," which, as I think of it, is a tradition we probably want to keep. But the rest? Begone! Out with ye!Avast!
Why am I talking like a pirate? I don't know. Here is how Charles Dickens described the pre-Scroogeified Xmas spirit:
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer...? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"-- Ebeneezer Scrooge
So it's time you were part of the solution, rather than the problem. This year, make sure that on Christmas Eve, you pay some bills and reflect that you are a year older, but not an hour richer. Do not, though, attempt to stake someone through the heart with holly, because that's murder. Unless the person is a Christmas Vampire, which, don't laugh, because that already exists.
Next year: Patriotic Christmas Vampires In Love With Keira Knightley.
2. Candy canes. Every holiday's got to have it's own candy, right? Halloween has candy corns, Easter has chocolate rabbits (which, okay, just chocolate in a different shape, but bear with me here) Arbor Day has bark, which is what the pilgrims ate instead of candy because back then people figured the quickest route to Heaven was never having fun ever, which makes you wonder how religion stuck around as long as it did.
And Christmas has "candy canes."
We use mint primarily as a flavor in two things: 1. Toothpaste, and 2. Foods that are 'mint-flavored' and therefore inedible because they taste like toothpaste. Candy canes are the latter category with the added bonus of sticking to your teeth like Jolly Ranchers used to.
Why do we eat candy canes at Christmas? Sounds like a google question! To the internets! Legend -- okay, Yahoo! Answers-- has it that in 1670 a choirmaster bent the "sugar sticks" into a cane shape to represent the shepherd's staff. But before you go off filling the kids' heads full of nonsense about "sugar sticks," consider that Yahoo! answers also picked as a potential answer to this question:
cause they are yummy and good for your tummy, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Which is, I think, a direct quote of what the Angel said to those shepherds watching their flocks at night.
This site, on the other hand, says that the red in the candy cane represents the blood of Jesus, which is improbable given that Xmas Inc.'s religious subsidiary ("A Verrye Merrye Christmase, LLC") celebrates the birth of Jesus (four to six months too late, but still). Still, if there is a way to make a candy cane less appetizing, it's to make it into a fishookesque crucifix reminder, so let's go with that.
(The white in the candy cane, that site says, represents your purity after Jesus died on the cross for you, so eating the candy cane is, I suppose, a form of penance.) (And with that explanation, we're back to how did religion ever catch on? If I were going to start a religion, it wouldn't begin with "Everything you like to do is evil," it would begin with "Joining this religion will help you lose weight without exercising" and end on "Plus, we'll never raise your prices on your DVD by mail rental.")(I would still have a Pope, but he'd be a cool Pope, and he'd have a Segway, and he would fight crime, primarily focusing on Nigerian mail order scams, because no superheroes are taking those on.)
Who should we blame for this? The natural target would be Jesus, but He's got a lot of people after Him already, and while Jesus can probably handle his enemies just fine, I'd rather not add to His troubles, especially when we all need Him to make sure Tebow makes the Super Bowl, because that would be awesome.
So let's blame, instead, that person who said they were good for your tummy and claim without any basis whatsoever that candy canes never get digested and instead line the walls of your liver until you die. We could start an Internet rumor that one kid who ate too many candy canes was found dead by New Year's and when they autopsied him his liver was red-and-white striped.
Whoa. I went to kind of a dark place there. Looks like things just got real, brain.
The fix: I probably need antidepressants. Also: why not steal a candy from Halloween? They've got lots. Plus, Peeps! I just remembered that! Easter has Peeps! So all holidays do have their own candy and I'm not crazy.
Me and you, brain, we're gonna make it.
3. Decorating the Xmas Tree:
God, how I hate this. Oh, man, do I hate decorating the Xmas tree.
When we were kids, decorating the tree was possibly the least fun aspect of Christmas -- or, if anything was worse than that, it was having to play piano for my relatives on Christmas Eve, but that's something I only share with the team of specialists who are helping me unpack my psyche.
My parents had rules for decorating the tree, and subrules, and subsubrules, rules like "ornaments can't touch the branches" and "two similar ornaments can't be in the same area of the tree" and some ornaments had to go inside and others outside and ornaments couldn't be blue and lights had to be colored and if your Christmas tree lights blinked you were extremely low class and all of it was nightmarish in the end.
As an adult, I have at times tried to decorate my tree in the way an adult is supposed to -- i.e., good-- and those times, too, have been miserable. Once, Sweetie and I strung popcorn. Have you ever strung popcorn? Don't. Popped popcorn kernels are, if you are lucky, about a half-inch in diameter, which means you need about 24 of them to make a foot.
To cover your tree in a popcorn strand, you will need about 20 feet of popcorn.
You do the math. I only just reconciled with my brain and I'm not going to mess that up.
Putting on ornaments takes forever, even if you chuck all those rules and let the kids put them whereever the heck they want, as we did one year. Putting on lights is worse -- especially if you do it the way my dad taught me to do it, the so-called "right way" which I now refer to as "not just more or less draping the lights on the branches because this is stupid and taking forever" the latter method being what I do now, but it still doesn't save much time and you scratch up your arms and get fake-tree-pine-sap in them, which I swear is a real thing that happens to me.
That's right: I believe that my artificial tree has real sap and you won't convince me otherwise.
And for what do I do all that? I put my tree up about a week before Xmas. I take it down the 26th because nothing is more sad than a Christmas tree after Christmas, it's like looking at an orphan starving in the street while you eat a sumptuous meal of whatever it is people who are vague stand-ins for Scrooge metaphors eat when they are embodying those metaphors.
If you google "man eating while starving orphan looks on" this is the first image that comes up. That kind of makes me paranoid, for some reason.
Scratched arms, shocks from poorly-insulated lights, the tree always leans one way or the other no matter how many "Cosmopolitan" magazines I stack under one side of the stand, all so that I can sit and look at that little dinosaur ornament I bought one year because I was at Target (TM) and saw a dinosaur Christmas ornament and had this conversation with my brain:
Me: Who would want a dinosaur ornament?
Brain: As of this moment, you do.
Me: That's true. I do.
And so we hang a triceratops on the tree when we decorate it with our box of ornaments, which we don't do anymore because we have Mr F and Mr Bunches and so we don't want to hang a bunch of actual, expensive ornaments on the tree in case they break them, so each year we come up with a new, unbreakable, easy-to-do theme for our tree. Last year was "candy canes," and we hung nothing but a variety of candy canes (and lights) on the tree -- hence their inclusion on this list this year -- and the year before was "pictures of the family" and this year it will be something completely different but I'm not going to reveal it yet.
Who should we blame: My parents. They told me that you have to have a Christmas tree, but they also told me you have to do it right if you're going to have one, and so each year I try to have one but each year I fail at the latter part (doing it right, according to their rules) and each year I think next year, I am not doing this, but I do.
The fix: Holographic trees. Wouldn't that be incredible? Just set up your projector and you get a 3-dimensional tree fully decorated in one of 12 different holiday themes, like "Traditional Christmas," "Charlie Brown Christmas" "The Stars & Stripes Forever" or "Women of NASCAR."
4. A Christmas Carol, in whatever #$(#($%&$# form you're stuffing it down my throat.
It's a nice little story. Got it. Man is mean, man learns a lesson, Tiny Tim blesses us, shut up.
There are other Christmas stories that you can retell. There are, in fact, people (like me, or almost anyone who reads this blog because if you read blogs you're probably a writer of some sort) who would happily whip you up a new Christmas story, and do it for cheap and it would be pretty good. You can make something Christmas-y just by putting the word Christmas in it, as in:
The Dukes Of Hazzard.
The Dukes Of Christmas.
See what I did there? (I was still sort of thinking of NASCAR. Hey, um, brain? I hate to rock the boat...)
Why does our government have so many vaults and caves?
Who should we blame? Not Charles Dickens. All he did was rattle off a crowd-pleasing story to make a little extra money, something he frequently did because Dickens was as fame-and-money-craving as anybody on Jersey Shore, so keep that in mind when you rip on Stephanie Meyers and claim she's just in it to make a buck.
Instead, let's blame every hack writer ever who couldn't come up with an original premise, and let's in particular blame Diablo Cody because I don't like her but I'm going to have to see that Young Adult movie because it looks good, damn her eyes.
The fix: Diablo Cody should use a pen name. And people should continue writing and producing their own books and movies because the publishing machine is crumbling and someday we'll all be our own publishers and we can republish A Christmas Carol verbatim as part of our "Indie Classics" line because it's in the public domain, so it's there for the taking.
Also, this came up when I googled A Sexy Christmas Carol:
5. People who get bugged by saying "Xmas".
As you've seen in this post, I am interchanging Christmas, and Xmas, more or less on a whim. That is because I'm lazy and realized too late that I was doing that, and so now I'm going to claim it's symbolic, that I was trying to make a point...
...Ex post facto claims of symbolism being the only claims of symbolism that are true, in that writers never intend to create symbols. That's not me talking. That's Ray Bradbury, who said that all good symbolism is purely unintentional and when writers try to make something symbolic they screw it up, which proves one thing:
What does this have to do with people who hate the use of Xmas? Nothing. It's just filler. Unless it's symbolic. Which it definitely is. Let's see: Ray Bradbury is the European Central Bank, and symbolism itself is symbolic of man's desire to...
I'll get back to you on that.
Who should we blame? People who hate the use of the word Xmas.
The fix: We should start saying it the way it is written. Today, I want you to go wish someone a Merry Ecksmas.
6. Movies/TV shows that try to explain the magic of Santa.
I watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation last night, as I traditionally do this time of year, and noticed that in the cartoon beginning, Rudolph's nose is a radio/beacon of sorts. I watched Disney's Prep & Landing a few years back and saw that they used elves to prep the landing strip for Santa on each rooftop. I watched The Family Guy Xmas Special or whatever it's called and was horrified, but whatever.
Elf showed the elves learning to do computer chips and had Santa's jet-sleigh, with its explanation of Xmas cheer coming from singing or something. Other shows presumably did other things, too, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
Here's the thing: The less explanation, the better when it comes to things magical. Did J.R.R. Tolkien explain how Gandalf did his "magic," which I put in quotes because Gandalf really did so little magic, didn't he?
J.R.R. Tolkien did not, though, explain how the not-very-magical Gandalf's so-called "magic" (fireworks!) worked.
And did J.K. Rowling explain how Harry Potter did his "magic," which, again, not really doing much of anything. Harry knew, like, three spells, and wasn't very good at those, so The Boy Who Lived was also The Boy Who Was Really Overrated, since in the end Harry's chief power was not dying, which actually makes him a Jesus metaphor, as Harry's death and resurrection made the world safe, so what are those Christians all upset about? In my new religion, you will be free to tell whatever stories you want.
Also: Now, when you eat candy canes, remember that the red is for Harry Potter's blood.
When Tolkien and Rowling did explain magic, it always sucked, didn't it? Why would Sauron put all his power into a ring? What did that gain? And then lose it? He couldn't see that happening? Has anyone ever owned a ring and not immediately lost it, as I said to my wife each time I lost my wedding ring? (It was just the one time, and we were inner-tubing on a river, and there was this scary part where we had to float on inner tubes past an actual biker rally... but I digress.)
'Twas The Night Before Christmas is not a Tom Clancy novel. We don't need technical explanations of how the bag works and whether reindeer's horns follow the Bernoulli principal.
Who To Blame: I'd say Tom Clancy, because if I blame J.K. Rowling she'll sue. She sues everybody. She's sued more people this morning than I will in my lifetime, and I'm the most litigious guy I know.
6. Stupid lists that play on "The 12 Days of Christmas".
Not much time today! So much to do! Hustle! Bustle! I wonder why we say bustle when we say hustle! Is it because it rhymes! That last one was a question but I didn't want to stop using! exclamation! points!
Whew. Now I'm exhausted.
Actually, did you know that hustle & bustle is a peculiarly Christmas expression? I didn't even make that up, although someone else might have made it up. According to a blogger at the Philadelphia Biblical University, and what better source is there than that?,
The phrase “hustle and bustle” has been cliche especially during the Christmas season. Not only has it come to characterize the month of December, but it has also become a good descriptor of our lives as Americans and as college students.
That blogger didn't provide any attribution for his assertion that hustle & bustle is a Christmas Cliche (Xmas Xliche? Sure, why not?) But he did provide a link to another Bible Blogger, Michael, who suggests that we "just be."
Just be. It’s a simple concept. Take time to be alone. Enjoy some quality time with God. Go play outside with some friends. Read a book while reveling in a well-brewed cup of coffee. No plans, no intentions, simply living. With that thought I am off to enjoy some Tolstoy before bed.
Hustle & Bustle is what linguists call an "irreversible binomial," a phrase which proves that linguists aren't too up on their linguistics. By irreversible they mean that the phrase isn't usually reversed, but irreversible means can't be reversed. What linguists really mean is that (a) the phrase hustle & bustle is a not-commonly-reversed binomial and (b) they don't really have any qualifications for real jobs but law school was too hard.
According to Wikipedia, a source only slightly less reliable than Bible Bloggers, "hustle and bustle" is an American expression not commonly used in England. Also not commonly used in the UK but claimed to be a common expression in the U.S.? "Bott's Dot," a phrase for a raised, round, nonreflective pavement marker:
In England, they call those Chaucer Saucers.
Well, they should.
Also: Hustle and Bustle should really be two Christmas imps who wreak mischief on shoppers at a swanky New York store, until they are discovered by the department store Santa, who at first is powerless to stop them until he summons up the real powers of Santa Claus and restores order to Christmas.
So, in conclusion, you can see that the hustle and bustle of the holidays is something or other, etc. etc., ad infinitum. Thank you all for coming today.
Here's the Song: You'll Never Find My Christmas, by Bishop Allen.
And the Santa Or Whatever Of The Day Is...
Gizmo, the Mogwai: So many people forget that Gremlins was a Christmas movie, probably because when you think about Gremlins being a Christmas movie, it turns out that Gremlins is a horrifying Christmas movie in which one character (Phoebe Cates, played by Phoebe Cates) hates Christmas because (as I recall) her dad died by suffocating in a chimney pretending to be Santa Claus.
Gremlins is the only Christmas movie marked by the extinction-by-sunlight of a whole horde of bad guys, or at least the only one my memory hasn't blocked out. But it also featured this scene of gremlins breakdancing and almost shooting Phoebe Cates:
And, in the end [SPOILER ALERT!] Gizmo saves Christmas by opening up the blinds at a local mall, because malls have blinds, and burning all the evil Gremlins in the fountain, thereby making sure that all the mall retailers who were counting on a big after-Christmas sale to make ends meet went out of business and declared bankruptcy.
I think it's safe to say yesterday's Emmet Otter song was the least popular song on this list, which is really saying something considering that one of the songs is a plea to not get shot by Santa Claus.
But I can read the mood of my audience, and so it's time to lighten things up again and cut back on the schmaltz with a song that Grumpy Bulldog Patrick Dilloway reminded me existed, and which is one of my favorite Christmas songs of all time: The Bob & Doug McKenzie Twelve Days Of Christmas:
The best part? When they add "... in a tree" to "And a beer" so that it fits.
I've never been sure what they were singing on some of those -- what with that "Canadian" accent and all-- so I looked up the lyrics, and here is what they get:
A beer.
Two turtle-necks
Three French toast
Four pounds of back-bacon
Five golden tooks,
Six packs of two-four
Seven pack of smokes,
and
Eight comic books
Which still doesn't answer all my questions, such as "what's a golden took," and I tried googling that but got nowhere, so help me out here.
Is it a drug thing? It's a drug thing, isn't it? God, I'm unhip.
In keeping with that theme, though, here's today's Best Santa Or Whatnot, and the one I'm presenting you with today is sure to be controversial: Bad Santa, which I've remarked a few times is one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. Bad Santa doesn't have a lot going for him, as a drunk, a loser, a criminal, a reprobate, and a guy who doesn't even know what a Fraggle Stick Car is. But, like all of us at this time of year, Bad Santa learns the real meaning of... well, Christmas, I suppose, but stop and think about that for a second:
What, exactly, is the meaning of Christmas these days? Doesn't it mean whatever good thing you want it to mean? Christmas is now a stand-in for all the emotions we'd like to have all the time: more than just goodwill to men and peace on Earth, (about that latter: see the Christmas Chopper Attack kids' ornament here), Christmas by now stands for pretty much any good thing.
And I thought "Really? At Christmas you tell the truth?"
I hadn't heard that before, and so I started paying attention to what people say Christmas is all about, and it's really about anything.
Christmas is, as I predicted long ago, swallowing up not just every other holiday, but every other good thing in the world. It won't be long before you can just say "Well, it's Christmas, and Christmas is when we balance the checkbook" or "At Christmas, it's tradition to make sure you have an extra piece of pie" or whatever it is you want to justify.
So in Bad Santa, then, Bad Santa learns an Important Christmas Lesson, and heralds the world we are headed to, one in which All Lessons Are Important Christmas Lessons. The Important Christmas Lesson Bad Santa learns is "something about caring about others", as exemplified by his insistence on delivering a stolen stuffed animal to Thurman Merman, and also as exemplified by one of the funniest scenes in Christmas movie history:
Just two weeks 'til Christmas, now, depending, of course, on when you read this. I'm writing it on the morning of Sunday, December 11, which means that two weeks from this moment my Christmas will be all done: we'll have opened the presents and drunk all the egg nog and watched all the Christmas specials and I'll be settling in for a lazy afternoon of chasing Mr Bunches and swinging with Mr F while Sweetie and the older kids go take in a Christmas Day movie.
Sounds nice, doesn't it? In other nice things, last night Mr F and I watched one of my favorite Christmas specials, ever: Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.
This song isn't particularly Christmas-y, but it was in a Christmas special, and I really like it: When The River Meets The Sea, this version by John Denver:
And today's Best Santa or Santa's Helper? Doc Bullfrog, from that same special. There's SPOILERS ahead, so [SPOILER ALERT!]: After Emmet punches a hole in Ma's washtub, and Ma hocks Emmet's tool box, both done to enter the talent show on Christmas Eve to try to get the $40 prize, some thugs from River Bottom enter their rock band and get first prize, leaving Emmet and Ma and the gang to walk home on the frozen river.
When they stop to sing a song:
(That version being from the stage production of this show), Doc Bullfrog overhears them and offers the band a chance to perform at his restaurant regularly -- saving their Christmas and, probably, their lives, because Ma's washtub and Emmet's toolbox were their only means of support.
It's okay if you're crying a little. Just pretend it's the dust.
And THAT is part of why every year I spend the better part of December providing links to and videos of "nontraditional" Christmas songs that are not those old standards. It's not just that I'm sick of the Baby Boomers defining everything by their existence -- yes, we get it, there are a lot of you, and you're convinced that every single thing you do is symbolic or meaningful, even if it's not and even if everything the Baby Boomers have accomplished in their sadly deluded lifetimes amounts to zero-
Seriously, what have they done? Our grandfathers won World War II and invented antibiotics. Baby boomers invented cocaine and the "SuperCongress." And don't get me started on the Next Generation, my generation, which invented "Nirvana" and Snapple and thus actually made the world worse off than when we were born.
-- but that I'm sick of hearing only about twenty different Christmas songs every year. I took the boys for a drive this morning because Mr F wanted hash browns from McDonalds, and put the Christmas music station on, and heard "Happy Holidays," "Jingle Bell Rock" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas." For the umpteenth time.
Over three years ago I started protesting this by posting songs that weren't old standards, and I'll keep it up until something changes. We all have to have a mission in life, after all.
And with that, here is today's Best Song Of Christmas, etc.:All I Want For Christmas, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:
And, of course, there's the 10 Best Santas and Whatnot: The Santa who helped Superman fight the Toyman in 'Twas the Fright Before Christmas:
Did you know that Santa has his own DC Comics page? Now, you do. You can find out Santa's history a history that includes a character snorting the ground-up bones of Santa Claus as part of an occult ritual.
Nope. Seriously:
By the account of magus John Constantine, the historical Santa Claus was actually Agios Nikolaus, born in Patara, Lycia (Turkey) in 270 CE. As an adult, Agios was appointed the Bishop of Myra, where he developed a reputation for performing miracles, such as resurrecting the dead. He was also known for his benevolence, charity, and anonymous gifts to the poor. Agios Nikolaus passed away in 343 CE, when he ascended to sainthood. His remains were entombed in Myra ... where they remained undisturbed for centuries.
In 2008, John Constantine located the skeleton of Agios Nikolaus and arranged to have the remains shipped back to England for use in an occult ritual. In order to get the remains through customs, Constantine had them ground into powder and convinced the customs agent that it was gardening fertilizer. He used some of the powder for his ritual, then snorted the rest as if it were cocaine, musing about how it was going to be a "White Christmas".
Which is really not much worse than St. Wenceslas, and we sing about him. There was also a DC Santa known as a cruel slave-driver who was eventually decapitated by the Easter Bunny and had a gorilla roommate:
Because in comics, you can't bring back Uncle Ben, but you can have Santa be involved with an ape.
But in 'Twas The Fright Before Christmas, Santa wasn't an ape-fetishizing reconstituted skeleton at all; he was more akin to the jolly old elf our modern Santas are required to be, and instead simply helped Superman fight the Toyman's evil plot to replace all the toys with hypno-toys that will make the kids go on a stealing spree on Christmas Day.
Superman is helpless to fight the Toyman, as he's been shot down by a "gravity ray" created from a piece of white dwarf star that Toyman bought as a paperweight (really!), and from there, it's Santa's show. From the Superman Homepage:
Back at the North Pole, Superman wakes up to find himself lying in a bed surrounded by elves and Santa Claus. Santa introduces himself, and Superman finds it hard to believe that he never saw Santa's workshop before while flying over the North Pole. However, Santa says that nobody can find his workshop unless he wishes it. Santa and Superman then head into Santa's hi-tech communications center, where every boy and girl in the world is monitored to see if they've been naughty or nice. Then they walk through Santa's workshop, where all the toys are made. This reminds Superman of an old toy he had while he was a baby on Krypton, a thought projecting device. Unfortunately that toy was destroyed when Krypton exploded.
Santa offers to help Superman with the Toyman, since Superman still hasn't recovered from the gravity beam. Santa and Timmy take off in Superman's sled, and Superman quickly joins them when he finds that he is still too weak from the gravity beam to maintain flight on his own.
They quickly reach Metropolis and land on the roof of the building where Santa's monitors tell him the Toyman is hiding out. Superman flies down the chimney and crashes in on the Toyman's lair. The Toyman orders his robotic toys to attack Superman. While Superman would normally beat the toys with no trouble, some of them are armed with a small amount of Kryptonite, making it difficult for him to beat them. Fortunately, Santa comes down the chimney as well, and releases his good toys to attack Toyman's evil toys. With the help of Santa's good toys, Superman is able to beat the Toyman, who is led off by the police. Superman then finds the Toyman's list of everyone who bought his hypnotic toys, and using his super-speed, he rounds them all up. He then returns to Santa and Timmy, to thank Santa for his help in capturing the Toyman. At that moment Timmy's toy ship fires off another gravity beam which hits Superman.
Superman wakes up to find himself lying in the snow at the North Pole, with Timmy huddled over him. Superman is confused, and wondering if his encounter with Santa Claus was all a dream. He flies Timmy home, and then goes to Clark Kent's apartment. He goes to remove his street clothes from his cape pouch, and finds something else in there as well. It's his old thought projector from Krypton, the one that was destroyed. It projects an image of Santa Claus wishing Superman a Merry Christmas.
So. I like to think there's a multiverse where every possible outcome has happened in some universe or other. Which means that in another universe, that story has become the "A Christmas Carol" for people, the story that defines the holiday and is constantly remade and retold, which means in that universe, there was a version of that story in which Bill Murray starred as Toyman and learned a valuable lesson.
Also: It's, I'll admit, a bit creepy to think of Santa spying on kids via secretly-installed cameras, and I wish I'd thought of that before putting this Santa on the list, but it's too late now. I've spent a lot of time writing this and I'm not about to go re-do it just because you have issues.
On to the snark: The Best Santas, Etc., which, remember, I'm listing here each day, too, and today's Best Santa Or Whatever is...
