Sept. 8, 1999
Margaret Atwood overlooked one probable bright spot in the new fundamentalist republic of Gilead (formerly the United States of America): the prohibition of secular Christmas music.
I should state up front that I don't advocate cleansing Christmas of Santa Claus, snowmen, Dickens, or James Stewart; and that I realize the supposed usurpation of Christmas by pagan trees and logs actually happened the other way around. Despite Christmas's many afflictions, the interested Christian is still able to find Christ.
My complaint today: from September until a reprieve on January 1, we are forced to hear far too much lousy Christmas music against our will.
The Perfect Gift!
The shopping malls are the prime offenders (and are chasing us online).
Labor Day weekend sees the dancing Santas, porcelain
dust-collectors, and Hallmarkiana put on display. Soon afterward,
television gets in on the act, as Isotoner gloves, Chia Pets, and
Black & Decker tools arise from hibernation and preen themselves
to the tune of "Deck the Halls". Yuletide Muzak starts to cloud the
air as the stores see weekend crowds, and in December every program
director with a pulse get the bright idea of dusting off those old
rock 'n' roll Christmas standards, from the Kinks, Elton John,
Bruce, and so on.
By the time Advent arrives, I already can't wait for Christma$ to be over, so they'll stop playing these awful songs.
Prime offender? Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride," by twenty lengths. A more apposite title would be "Feculent Christmas Song from Hell." The song is a patchwork of musical cliches, lasts forever, and is invasively overplayed. Your choices are the lounge version with vocals or the elevator version with strings. Like a Bon Jovi single, "Sleigh Ride" must have seemed fresh at the time but is antiquated now.
The Enemies List
Here are the most annoying Christmas songs, in somewhat descending order:
There's something about Jesus
Strip the vocals from "I'll be home for Christmas" and listen to
the music. Then do the same for "Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)."
Which is more complex, more affected? The former. Which has more
power? The latter. "Adeste Fideles" is among the simpler hymns, and
doesn't look like much until you sit and the organ and play it.
The skillful way it handles the dominant key (the fifth) is powerful.
The birth of Christ seems to inspire a composer more than a fireplace, ride on a sled, or sprig of mistletoe. The secular songs grow old and stale, as most popular music does, but the hymns, written by Germans and Englishmen dead for centuries, still have subtleties that work themselves out over decades as you grow up.
Good Songs
Yeah, there are a few good pop Christmas songs.
The one by the Waitresses, for example. But you could count them
with a starfish.
More complaints
Christmas has other problems aside from music. Each year, it behaves
more like a rude guest: arriving too early, staying too long,
telling you how to conduct your life; if you protest,
it calls you unsentimental or miserly, or invokes false traditions.
Like airline flight, Christmas was great fun when we were seven years old, when most of the gory details were hidden from you. I couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive, and all the decorations, trees, food, and music only built up the anticipation.
Today, it's all about the money, just as Halloween is now all about beer. We are carpet-bombed by advertising telling us how to spend our gift-giving dollar. The news media get into the act, with breathless projections of whether this season will be boom or bust for the department stores, as if we should care.
Everyone chimes in on how you could show your loved ones you really care. The diamond cartel recommends diamonds, the greeting card companies collectibles, the recording industry compact discs, or gift certificates. For children, there's always the newest anime-inspired plastic toy that will keep the child's interest for 30 minutes, which works out to $100 an hour. Then on the 26th, another slew of commercials assuring that if Christmas was ruined because you got the wrong gifts, you can at least return them and get what you really want.
Pity the person with gift recipients out of town, who gets the privilege of burning money and time in line at the post office or UPS site to ship all this stuff.
Some Christmas traditions seem especially suffocating. Will the universe rend at the seams if we do without turkey from November to January? Must we squander an afternoon purchasing and dragging a dead tree into the house? What's up with eggnog? And what will happen if you throw away your Christmas card list (with columns for "sent" and "received") and just send letters to people you want to share with?
There's plenty of room this season for people of all religions (or none) to share happiness, joy, and hope. If only we could kick out the marketers and start over.
