We Need A Little Christmas

 

 

 

I am going to admit something very, very shocking.

 I like listening to Christmas music.

There, I said it. That took a load off of my mind. 

I like all kinds of Christmas music.  I like the Christmas carols, of course. Some of them are so well written it would make Dylan/Cohen/Lennon and McCartney green with envy

"Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
 The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

 That's just from one song. All of these songs are always there. You can probably name them all. "Silent Night".  Admit it, you always wondered what a "round yon virgin " was, haven't you?

Next are the pop Christmas songs of the Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties, before The Beatles and that old long hair came in and tried to make everything cool. Speaking of which, I know people like "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon.  I don't.   I just imagine (ha, ha, no pun intended) John staring me down saying "So, this is Christmas, what have you done?" with that smug John Lennon face. I don't know, John, just back off and let me enjoy my figgy pudding.

The  Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties songs were drenched in nostalgia. People are dreaming of a White Christmas just like the ones they used to know.

I was raised in Georgia. It never snowed at Christmas. If we were lucky, it rained. 

One song that I like even though it is kind of weird is "Happy Holidays" by Andy Williams.

When I was a kid, Andy Williams was everywhere adults were at. He wasn't quite as boring as Lawrence Welk and those doofuses.  He just seemed like everybody's dad that could sing "Moon River", which is, as a matter fact, wider than a mile.

Here's a part of the song I think is kind of weird.

"It's the holiday season
With the whoop-de-do and hickory dock
And don't forget to hang up your sock
'Cause just exactly at 12 o'clock
He'll be coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney, down!"

I get there is a whoop-de-do at Christmas time.  I'm not sure I know what a "hickory dock" is  and why it goes with a whoop-de-do.  As a personal preference, I prefer to use the term "stocking" instead of "sock" even though I acknowledge a "stocking" is just a "sock" that knows somebody. "Stocking sounds like Christmas. "Sock" sounds smelly.

Additionally, I never knew Santa came down the chimney exactly at 12 o'clock. It is not enough that he flies through the air with a bag of toys powered by reindeers, but he does all of this at the exact time of 12 o'clock?  I'm sorry, even with my limited math and physic skills, I'm not buying it.

There is one song played at Christmas that is very appropriate this year:  "We Need A Little Christmas".

I have done some research on this song. This song came out in 1966 and was part of the Broadway play "Mame".  It seems Mame had lost her fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 and she decides her household "needs a little Christmas" to feel better about life. It was first performed by Angela Lansbury who, right now, as of this writing, is still alive.

This verse:

"For I've grown a little leaner
Grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder
Grown a little older
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my shoulder

We need a little Christmas now!"

If there is ever a year that needs a little Christmas it is 2020.  It practically started with Kobe Bryant flying into a mountain. Then the unending Presidential election in which we selected a 78 year old man who warns of a "dark winter" with 250,000 additional Covid deaths in December in the United States when we've had a total of 272,000 total since last January. Nobody with our ever vigilant Press tried to question him about that figure because they're still dealing with the Trump Circus. 

Covid-19 started with the promise that we would only be in lock down to "flatten the curve" and in some states, oddly enough with the strongest restrictions, still haven't flatten the curve. 

Add to that the unrest, which doesn't cause the virus to spread, and it has been one bummer of year, man.

We need a little Christmas. We need laughter. We need Christmas pageants of little kids wearing towels on their heads pretending to be shepherds in the field. We need bright lights. We need to see The Radio City Rockettes, at least I do.

We need to go see the latest Christmas releases from Hollywood.  We need to see choirs. We even need crowded malls and shopping centers. We need to see little children sitting on Santa's knee. 

We need to stand when the cantata reaches "The Hallelujah Chorus".  We need to hear the people ringing the bells for The Salvation Army.

The Christmas after the 1929 Stock Market Crash had to be bleak. The same with the Christmases of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  But there has never been a Christmas, at least to my knowledge, where the government has gone out of their way to be a Scrooge all in the name of your personal safety.

Maybe they are right, I don't know.  I take solace in the words of another Christmas song.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on
Our troubles will be out of sight."

Hopefully, with a vaccine on the horizon, by this time next year, our troubles will be out of sight.

But, like the song says, "Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow".

In 2020, we are going to muddle through. Somehow.