Let it Snow

Jarom and Emma and I made a snowman yesterday.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Paul provides awesome graphics as per usual. Thanks, Paul!

I like Christmas music. If you do not like Christmas music, vamoose. At this time of year my tastes broaden to include the likes of Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, and The Carpenters. I have been listening to traditional Christmas music on Pandora for a week or so and have enjoyed the music tremendously. Mostly. There are some songs, however, that attempt to stretch the boundary of what is tolerable - even to someone as broad-minded as me!

Let us take, for example, the tune I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus as performed by Perry Como. It starts out well enough as a cute little song about infidelity with a grizzled old elf, but at precisely 1 minute and 4 seconds into the song the whole thing turns markedly sour when the backing singers begin to chant in a schoolyard taunting sing-song voice "We know a secret. We've got a little secret. Nah-nah na nah-nah." I ask you! How does such an abomination of a ditty make it's way into an otherwise fine production? I used to sleep comfortably with the assumpion that such trite and childish musical inclusions were reserved to the Bachata music I used to hear in the Dominican Republic. Comfortable assurance has been supplanted by unease. Yes, unease. And dread.

Next I will criticize a song that perhaps several of you have heard before. If you want to express your appreciation for this song, get your own dang blog because I hate it! It is the Mannheim Steamroller recording of Deck the Halls. Can anyone guess why I would put so much effort into my dislike for this song? It is not hard to guess as the reason occurs 5 (five [that's F-I-V-E]) times therein. In preparing this blog entry I had to listen to the song all the way through to ascertain the precise number of occurances. Do you see what pains I go to in order to bring you, the fine reader of this blog, ideas from the cutting edge of my brain? If by now you have not guessed the reason for my euphemistic displeasure with this recording, it is that they do not play the correct note. And they do this as though it were intentional! Did you give them permission to do so? I assure you, I did not. Shame on you if you did. I want you to write on a chalkboard 500 times "I will never, no, not ever, again give permission to Mannheim Steamroller to brutalize another song for the duration of my existence whether mortal or otherwise and if I observe another individual in the act of providing such permission I will admonish and scold them on authority of Joel." Once you have completed this assignment, mail the blackboard to me. You will then be required to clean the chalk-laden erasers before you will be allowed to return to your seat. If you appreciate your current beratement-free state, do not post a comment here indicating any degree of fondness for this song.

Sasha, stop reading now. Last on the list of abominable Christmas songs is a little booger that squeezed its way out of the infernal depths of hell: Harry Connick Jr's recording of Frosty the Snowman. Hang on one moment, please. Well, I just listened to it again and decided that it isn't evil so I'll let it pass. Sasha, you can start reading again. In fact, never mind about me telling you to stop reading up there. You can go ahead and read this. I do not sympathize with the "Thumpitty thump thump" shout which occurs multiple times in this recording and the jazziness lends a great amount of no-thank-you-ness to the whole thing, but as I wrote earlier, it is not virulently evil and therefore not a contender for inclusion in this blog post. In fact, I'm just going to remove this paragraph entirely.

Ok, now it is Sherri's turn to stop reading. Stop reading now, please, Sherri. Seriously, I am not going to change my mind on this song like I sorta did on the Harry Connick Jr. one. So STOP. Everyone else, I'm not talking to you. Continue reading as though Sherri were nowhere around. If she insists on reading through this portion of the blog, ignore her! On we go. There is a song called "Mele Kalikimaka" which was made famous by the unmitigated Bing Crosby. Bing, I really enjoy a lot of your Christmas songs and your cherries are delightful. But this piece of sewage pushes my buttons. If you couldn't tell by the title of the song itself, the entirety of the song is based on a mispronunciation of the greeting "Merry Christmas". It doesn't help anyone that I have an abiding distaste for polynesian music of any sort due to my step-father foisting it upon us whenever we traveled along the grooved shoulder of the highway (you know, the grooves that are supposed to alert the driver to the fact that he is driving on them (the grooves) and not the freeway lane that he thinks he is driving on) for hundreds of miles on any given road-trip.

Ok, Sherri, you can start reading again, but if you start to misbehave, I'm cutting you out again. There you have it, folks. My sentiments, exactly. I hope you are never forced to choose between listening to one of these songs and something grody and terrible. It would be a tough decision. But if you are a masochist or feel that your "very poor Christmas music" tolerance is higher than mine, I have made these songs available on my FTP site under the "Jukebox\Christmas\painful" folder. If you do not have an FTP account, one can be yours for the low low price of $99.99.99 - Contact me for details.