Friday, November 14, 2008

The X-mas Season... Already?


This is not an official Holiday Season post because I refuse to acknowledge the fact that the X-mas season starts right after Halloween. I prefer to settle into autumn 1st. You may recall when the Holiday season was a simple 40 days: the Advent Season. of course, FDR, in his infinite wisdom, realised that if he pushed Thanksgiving back a week, people would have an extra week of Christmas shopping to spur the economy during the Depression. It was a good idea, but now that people aren't quite as concerned w/ the etiquette of holiday shopping, stores can promote X-mas w/o the fear of faux pas. Since we're now left w/o the traditional starting gun that was Thanksgiving, we have fallen on a new delineation. Stores replace the Halloween candy w/ X-mas stuff because, let's face it, what else can they put there for 3 weeks? Toilet paper & big rubber totes? I saw that @ Target once, but it was ridiculous. That leaves us needing to accept the X-mas merchandising, but it doesn't really give us the official line of demarcation we so demand. Sensing this void in our lives, 1 group of people has stepped to the plate & solved our problem: radio station programmers. And the lovely folks @ 100.3 WNIC have done just that. Starting Nov. 1, they've been playing X-mas music & only X-mas music & they will continue to do so until New Years Day. Unfortunately for me, I made the mistake of allowing the kids to listen to this the other day, & I've had a certain tune by Wham stuck in my head ever since. Because off that & because I'm almost ready to concede that X-mas season has started, I give you m 10 worst X-mas songs ever.

10) "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" - Brenda Lee: A cheap rip-off of "Jingle Bell Rock"
9) "The Chipmunks Song" - Alvin and the Chipmunks: I dig harmonicas as much as the next guy, but this is going too far
8) "Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk this Christmas" - John Denver: Solely based on he title... I've never actually heard it
7) "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" - Phillip Brooks: When I was 3, we had a Time/Life 2 record set of X-mas tunes & I've hated this ever since
6) "Funky Funky Christmas" - NKOTB: So obvious it almost didn't make the list... sorry Elizabeth
5) "Wonderful Christmas Time" - Sir Paul: Happy Christmas, War is Synthesized... I blame Linda
4)"Do they Know it's Christmas?" - Band Aid: They do now... after the Bob Geldof found yet another way to force Christianity (& the resulting Western Hegemony) on an African culture... they did feed a few people though @ least there's that
3) "The Hoser" - Bob and Doug: Stupid
2) "Dogs Barking Jingle Bells" - a bunch of dogs: This is a hard 1 because everyone knows how much I just love dogs
1) "Last Christmas" - Wham: Get out of my head, damn song!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

while I have to agree about Wonderful Christmas Time which I consider a testament as to John being right about Paul...I have to admit, I love the Hoser song...

for the most part...Christmas songs make my skin crawl...and Pauls song maybe more than any other one---just cos I'm such a fan...ugh

Anonymous said...

Jimmy Eat World does a nice version of Last Christmas too.

Andre said...

There are many versioins of that song, but none are "nice"!