Worst Christmas Song Ever

Christmas Shoes…

The tortured scenario is quintessentially Dickensian. (I’ve been wanting to say that phrase for years). The only way I can envision this song being made worse frightens me more than the third ghost of Christmas yet to come. It is only a matter of time before some American Idol reject, former child star suffering from anorexia and an inability to get media traction after hitting puberty, or a decrepit past glory celebrity seeks to reinvent themselves and bag a few bucks by doing a remake.

It happens to the very best of songs, why not the worst? Santa Baby never needed a remake, and as for Madonna’s version of Eartha Kitt’s classic, her voice makes me think….she was a beautiful bar fly once.

Part of the reason I get worked up is the sheer volume of music that gets plastered against my ears during this time of year. It used to be a once a year treat, you dug up Dad’s scratchy records and hoped they wouldn’t get stuck during one of the boring songs like “I Wonder as I Wander.”

We had That Christmas Feeling, that old chestnut of a record put out by K-Mart or K-tel Records. I belonged to a dance studio that performed regularly all over town during the Christmas season using its selections. I pined for the day when I would get picked to dance in a red leotard and skirt, trimmed with white fur and wearing a Santa hat. Never happened. I lost out on that Christmas Sorority and so “We Need a Little Christmas” always makes me both neurotically nervous about what I haven’t done and rekindles my feelings of envy at not getting picked to be an elf.

Now Christmas music starts on one station here on November 1st. That’s just wrong. WRONG. I’m waiting for some radio exec to decide they can make more profit by playing all Christmas songs all the time 365 days a year. I also keep vowing to stay up on Christmas Day until December 26 starts to see what the first song is that the DJ’s break loose with when they get to return to their normal format.

I’ve never done it but I do have my personal suggestions, something from Meatloaf, Rush or Bon Jovi. Sort of like a lemon sorbet to cleanse the mental pallet.

But I digress…

The Christmas Shoes song repeats on the all Carols all the time station at least once every three hours, and as such I revisit my irritation. Fortunately, there are others who share my views. I have read the bad reviews. They are entertaining in the same way reading about the next train wreck of a movie provides a bit of schadenfreude. I won’t attempt to outdo the clever bits out there that suggest the whole story was a con, that question why a kid is out buying shoes if his mama is dying and what daddy lets their kid off at Kohl’s en route to the hospital for a bit of last minute shopping?

No. This is supposed to be a clever blog; a kinder gentler blog that does not resort to cheap exploitation of the contrived and the stupid, the saccharine and the maudlin for laughs. I must wrestle with my conscience. Do I want to spend an extra few eons in purgatory for abusing my gifts by piling on what is obviously an imperfect vessel of communication created by a person who thinks Christmas is all about creating Hallmark Moments so sweet they were rejected by Chicken Soup for the Soul?

I answer my concience honestly. Well…maybe a little.

Real Writer's Block

“What are you doing?” my husband asked as he approached the computer desk, sandwich and milk in hand, eager for an hour or two of Civilizations IV.

“Trying to write a column for a contest.” I replied.

“Doing what exactly?”

“Writing about family life. It’s a contest and the winner gets $300 bucks. The entry fee is $11. See?”

He glanced at the screen. “You aren’t going to use our real names are you? You can’t write about our camping trip! We’d look like idiots, setting up tents at 10 o’clock at night, pushing the button on the SUV every two minutes to give us light, the baby crying, the kids howling for food, me throwing pop-tarts and cokes at them for dinner, and the nearest bathroom a 6/10 of a mile away.”

“You left out the giant cricket on the toilet seat.”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ve got another idea.”

“Like what?”

“How about when Lisa found a snake in the bathroom while she was potty training…”
“You can’t write about that, people will think we live in a vermin infested home!”

“For $300 dollars, we could call Orkin.”

“I caught that snake for you, thank you very much.”

“And I was very grateful. It’s a good story. It has a happy ending.”

“Do you want my mother to read this?”

……

“Okay. Starting over. How about when David was the solo in the Christmas pageant and knocked over his music stand during the introduction? Or the time the coach threatened to hot glue his shoe laces together if he didn’t tie them?”

“Must all your stories be embarrassing about us?”

“No, I could write about how I totaled the car the day it was paid off. I could also write about the time we took all of them to your brother’s rehearsal dinner and they all threw up…”

“Absolutely not. Look, I’m proud of you and your writing, but I’m just not sure I’m ready for us to look like the Bumpuses from next door to the whole world.”

“We won’t really, we’ll just look like, well, us.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“You know, I might not win.”

“What do you mean you won’t win? We’re not funny enough? I’ll be insulted if we don’t at least place.”

“Why don’t you play CIV IV? I’ll watch.”

As American As...

Baseball, Mom and Apple Pie...

I debated leaving out that phrase to let the reader fill in the blank as part of the conceit.

Everyone and their dog has used this cliché to describe some aspect of life in America, from illegal immigration to massive credit card debt to the latest model SUV with extra cargo space, a DVD player and heated leather seats. Googling the phrase to discover its orgin only muddied the waters of what it means to be “as American as” that game with a stick and nine players, your biological maternal unit and granny smiths chopped and mixed with a good heaping of sugar and tapioca baked to gooey perfection.

The web search for “American as…” lead to Music, Drugs and Movies, a tag for a Flowmaster Exhaust system and a What kind of Chocolate Pudding are You quiz that I refused to investigate. There was an ad for Jim Salestrom, a musician who someone loved as much as…you guessed it. I also found a screed on how politicians HAVE to like baseball, Mom and apple pie, as though those were bad obligations. Though I suppose cherry lobbyists would appreciate slight modifications, not to mention Hockey Players or for that matter, Dads.

Even old Bartlett Quotations let me down as I could not trace the source of this tried and true phrase that has been used to describe so many and so much while revealing so little. These words have been used to justify cookies and milk at snack time for kindergartners from super unctuous nutrition police in Lembke, though I don’t actually think Lembke is in America. Money management used it to describe the need to save for retirement. Five pages back in the Ask Jeeves search, were sites dedicated to both love and hated of all things Walmart, and a promotional page for a Portland Oregon Radio Station. Ten pages deep into Google, there was a scary website I also wouldn’t visit, hotboxingnews. I'm sure it's very heart warming and patriotic though.

I guess the need to equate one thing with another and ascribe virtue and appeal is very American. Think I’ll grab a pizza, watch some football and call my Mom.
What can I say? I’m still something of a traditionalist.