When you’re a little kid, Christmas is just magical. Santa, snow, presents, food, and the lights... everywhere there were Christmas lights! Lights on the tree, lights in the windows, and lights in the street just made that time of year pop. All you cared about were not being in school and wondering what Santa was going to bring you. The anticipation drove you nuts. I would have my Christmas list ready right after Thanksgiving. I had my many requests consisting of the newest video games, He-Man figures, Matchbox cars, baseball cards, etc. It wasn’t so much of a request as it was a wish. And 98% of the time, your wish came true. To me, it was magic. Santa brought me my reward after having yet another year of being a good boy. To think back on it, it’s really a small window of being fully immersed in that Christmas magic. My nephew is three and a half years-old and he’s just starting to figure out this whole Santa thing and comprehend it. How much longer does he have until the bubble bursts and he realizes what’s really going on? Five years? Seven at best.
You and I both know that the magic of Christmas isn’t lost when you find out that MasterCard has been bankrolling your presents the entire time. It just takes on a different meaning. The anticipation of the day, for me, wasn’t any less. I was well into my teens waking up early on Christmas morning at the crack of 7am to go down the steps to open presents. I would wake my brother and sister and whisper, “Wake up! It’s Christmas!” Tear open into your presents, the not-looking-forward-to-it-at-all trip to church, then the family dinner later in the day. Maybe a long the way we’d make pit stop at a relatives house, or to a family friend’s place to visit their party they had going. Sure, I look back on those moments with fondness, but I guarantee I didn’t want to do any of that shit. I wanted to play with my new toys, damnit! As you get older, your priorities change. Now, you’re not anticipating what Santa left you under the tree, but more anticipating coming home and seeing people you care for, and time off from work. I started to enjoy the overall mood of the holidays. I like walking downtown in the frigid weather and seeing the decorations in town, I like the snow flurries falling, and I especially love the music. Throw on that Nat King Cole Christmas album, the Vince Guaraldi Trio playing Charlie Brown, or even Alvin & the Chipmunks, and it feels so comfortable. It feels right. It’s a time warp back to childhood.
Christmas is a positive time of year. Aside from the abnormally high suicide rates during this time of year, everybody is generally nicer to each other, people volunteer and donate their time more, it is, as Andy Williams sung, the most wonderful time of year. That’s why I get a great kick out of the “War On Christmas” stories that get dug up every year. Seems like trumped up charges to me. Sure, there’s a few dissidents that say Christmas is commercialized, and that the Christ in Christmas is lost. I get that, but what is compromised? Saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” to encompass all the holidays celebrated by most people this time of year? Big fucking deal. You’re telling me that if someone doesn’t wish you good tidings for the exact holiday YOU celebrate, you’re going to be mad? Get your head out of your ass. And by the way, I don’t celebrate Kwanzaa, but I do find it funny when I hear people (as in, I hear someone tell me this past week) that it’s a “made up” holiday. I got news for you: All holidays are made up. With Kwanzaa (and Festivus), we can actually point with certainty when those holidays were created. All the traditional holidays ultimately rely on guesswork from stories orally passed on from hundreds or thousands of years ago. Just sayin’. Seems silly that some people get offended when someone is acting nice towards them. Way to be a douche.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas | ||||
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It doesn’t matter if you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, or plain old December 25th, try to not be a miserable bastard during the holiday season. It’s the one time of year everyone is encouraged to suck it up and act civil to each other and actually care for each other as human beings. Try to at least remember the magic of this time of year from when you were a child. If Christmas music or movies do it for you, great. If it’s wrapping presents for Toys for Tots, fantastic. Making a batch of Boilo to get hammered with relatives on the 25th? Godspeed. I’m not even asking to keep the spirit with you the whole year. That’s awfully ambitious, so try to just at least make it ’til January 2nd. Enjoy the holiday season. Try to spend it with the ones you love, see friends and family you haven’t seen in a while, and maybe carve out out some time to get ripped, too (or combine all three!). There’s plenty of time to feel pissed and depressed when that MasterCard bill comes in January.
Current Top 10 Christmas Songs (subject to change on a daily basis)
- “The Christmas Song” - Nat King Cole
- “Christmas Time Is Here (vocals)” - Vince Guaraldi Trio (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
- "Teddi’s Song" - John Mellencamp
- “Do You Hear What I Hear?” - Bing Crosby
- “Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey” - Lou Monte
- “Mistletoe and Holly” - Frank Sinatra
- “Have A Holly Jolly Christmas” - Burl Ives
- “Wonderful Christmastime” - Paul McCartney
- ”The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)” - Alvin & the Chipmunks
- “Auld Lang Syne” - James Taylor
- “Christmas Shoes” - New Song (w/ Patton Oswalt’s take)
- “Feliz Navidad” - Jose Feliciano
- “The Twelve Days of Christmas” - All versions and variations
- “All I Want for Christmas Is You” - Mariah Carey
- “Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer” - Elmo & Patsy
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Rankin-Bass)
- The Year Without A Santa Claus (Rankin-Bass)
- A Christmas Story
- Christmas Eve On Sesame Street
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