Lacking Christmas Spirit

Well, I got chewed out again today for a lack of “Christmas Spirit”, whatever THAT is.

Since I’m already wishing people “happy holidays” and whistling, humming and singing Christmas carols, I’m going to chalk this up to “you just can’t please some people”.

Here’s what precipitated this accusation.

We have a terrific radio station here locally called WARM 106.9. Here’s their website, in case you want to listen: http://www.warm1069.com/

At any rate, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, these guys play nothing but Christmas music. Or at least, that’s what they say.

So this morning, I started chuckling after a couple of songs and a coworker asked what I was laughing at. I said “These aren’t Christmas songs.” She said “No, they’re technically “holiday” songs.” I said “No, they’re just songs. Some are winter songs, but they aren’t holiday songs. If they want to play the Dreidel song, that’s great… I love that song. But these aren’t about any holiday.”

That’s when she accused me of being lacking in Christmas spirit.

For the record, your honor, I feel that in order to be a “Christmas” song, a song has to mention one or more of the following three things:

A) Christmas. Seems like it would go without saying, but…

B) Santa. An icon of Christmas. If I remember the lyrics correctly, Christmas itself isn’t mentioned once in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, but it’s still pretty clearly a Christmas song.

C) The Nativity. Oh, yeah… THAT’S what we’re celebrating.

The first song in question was Frosty the Snowman. I realize that the Christmas special based on (or inspired by) the song said that Frosty was made of “Christmas” snow and at the end, Santa rejuvenates him with “Christmas” magic, but NONE of that is in the song. Check the lyrics.

The next song was “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”. Great song. Not about Christmas. Actually a love song.

Then comes “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”. Fun song. NOT a Christmas song. I’m not entirely sure how Americans have come to associate snow so closely with Christmas anyway, given that most of us don’t get snow at Christmas.

The final straw for me was “Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. Although I find the play and movie itself a little saccharine, I like this song. Of course, my version goes “Handcuffs on hookers and tightly bound beauties… brunettes and redheads and all sorts of cuties… multiple hotties all tied up with string… these are a few of my favorite things…” But even the original version is NOT a Christmas song. This one really puzzles me.

This attitude, though, kind of exemplifies why I disdained celebrating the holiday for so many years. Christmas seems to have become a catch-all for anything cute and sweet. I mean, the stuffed polar bears with the Santa hats made little enough sense to me. Now, over the last several years, PENGUINS have come to be associated with Christmas. One person tried to tell me that it’s because penguins live at the north pole with Santa. Nice try, but penguins live at the SOUTH pole. As far from Santa as they can possibly get. I guess that it’s because they’re associated with snow, which MOST OF US DON’T GET AT CHRISTMAS ANYWAY!

I guess that what I’m trying to do here is to get people to get a little pickier about what they lump in with Christmas. Even if you don’t celebrate the religious aspect of the holiday, let’s keep it to Santa and Christmas trees and stuff, can we?

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. (And women. And children. And animals.)

Randal