Christmas Songs

Earlier today as I was bopping around my kitchen preparing food and getting into the holiday spirit with a little Christmas music, I started getting a strange feeling. Little question marks started popping up in my head as the internet radio kept playing the classic yuletide staples. On occasion, I would sing a few lines (yes, I’m not afraid of my family hearing my voice, and I’m pretty sure my neighbors think I’m crazy anyway), and I caught myself singing a few things that I thought were rather bad representations of what I would call the “True Meaning of Christmas.”

I posted about one of the songs and how I felt on The Facebook but I’ve decided that this specific occurrence wasn’t the only bad song subject and I started looking around. Now, others may have brought this to light in the past, after all epiphanies aren’t necessarily original thoughts, but they are personal to those that have them, so if you have thought these thoughts yourself, or have heard others extrapolate from this idea, my apologies. I just have to get this out.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas – This is the song that started it all. The chorus is simple enough, being the title of the song, but the verses are rude and demanding. Commands, to either the host or the help as if shouted by drunken louts who demand figgy pudding not just whenever but RIGHT NOW! As if that weren’t enough, the next lines threaten to stay put, demanding more pudding …”FASTER… CUZ WE AIN’T LEAVING YOUR PARTY TIL WE GET SOME FIGGY PUDDING!” No “please” or “thank you”, just make with the pudding already, and by the way, Merry Christmas. Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, sung about in celebration by millions of people each holiday season. Jesus wouldn’t demand figgy pudding. He would just make sure everyone had some.

The Little Drummer Boy – I’ve had a problem with this song for a while now. I have said it before, and I’ll say it right here. Playing the drums for a newborn baby, Messiah or not, could do irreparable harm to the babe’s sense of hearing. Another thing, babies aren’t impressed with the kind of manual dexterity that even the BEST drummers have. Judging from the fact that you don’t have anything but your drum and aren’t actively gigging in Bethlehem, which we all know was in full swing the night Mary and Joseph pulled into town due to a lack of space in the local hotels and inns, your drumming skills are not going to impress the Son of God. The song would have been better if the boy would have sold the drum and bought the baby a blanket.

The Twelve Days of Christmas- This song is indicative of the widening gap between rich and poor. The gifts in this song are so extravagant and eccentric that poor people wouldn’t know what to do with most of the items. Maybe we eat the geese, and pawn the rings? People are still buying gold right? What do I do with leaping lords and pipers and turtle doves? On the ONE day of Christmas that I celebrate, my true love will find a reasonable gift that I will enjoy. I greatly prefer this approach than having to awkwardly explain to contracted dairy workers that I have no cows to milk. This is not a song that should be sung joyfully by the 99%.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer –This song isn’t nearly as bad as the others. At its heart it is simply a tale of overcoming adversity. It can be used in bullying curriculum too if arranged correctly. However, it is tied forever to the stop-motion animation Christmas “Classic” holiday special of the same name that many of us grew up with. The script is alive with cruelty and misogynistic undertones. Even Santa tells Rudolph’s father, Donner, that he should be ashamed that his son was born different. What if Rudolph was born without legs? Would Santa drop by and fire Donner from his sleigh team because he thought it was Donner’s fault such a thing happens?

Baby It’s Cold Outside- No means NO! Geez mister, take her home. Make sure you keep your hands nice and respectful and you won’t get a mouthful of Chick-lets from her brother who is waiting by the door. This song makes me uncomfortable, and not because it is cold outside. Run lady, RUN!

Santa Baby-My first thought whenever this song comes on is: greedy whore. Nothing cute about singing about all the high end stuff you want. Stay away from her Santa. She’s high maintenance. Instead of a Sable under the tree or the deed to a platinum mine, why not a reality show where you can invite others to try to KEEP UP WITH YOU. Or better yet, maybe ask for absolution or forgiveness.

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas- This is a song that says how wonderful everything is about the Christmas Season. It’s beautiful, there’s wonder in the air. Everything is perfect…except having the children around is kind of a drag. When does school start again? Because it’s clear that the songwriter has had enough “family togetherness time”.

Up on the House Top – Here’s a song that goes for broke when it reinforces stereotypes with gender bias toys. Hammer and tacks? Yeah, prepare to be pulling those out of the sheetrock for the next two weeks. A whistle? You’d give a boy a whistle? Do you like listening to nonstop, single pitch whistling? Because that’s what you’re going to hear, whistling. A Whip? What kind of sick person gives a child a weapon used only for inflicting pain on other living creatures? Don’t give me the “Indiana Jones swinging” defense either. Indy wasn’t invented until AFTER this song was written and nobody, NOBODY gives a person a whip to use as transportation, I don’t care how many chasms you have in your neighborhood. That’s just the “boy” toys. The stocking of little Nell has a doll that opens and shuts her eyes. Where’s a trigonometry book? Where’s a rock climbing harness? No, Nell really needs to concentrate on those home-making skills. Not literal home making, say, with a hammer and lots of tacks, but figurative home-making. Here’s my advice for little Nell. Girl, you be whatever you want to be. You don’t have to take what any morbidly obese man in a red suit gives you just because society pushes it onto you.

Frosty the Snowman – This is a song more about reincarnation and Hinduism if you ask me. After all, he’ll be back again…someday.

We Three Kings- Imagine how Mary felt; a new city, a lot of questions about the pregnancy, and Joseph goes and forgets to check his Expedia confirmation number for the room they were supposed to have and now her special child has to literally be born in a barn. Now, weary from childbirth, she’s supposed to host three king’s in a stable without so much as one place setting of her good Mikasa from back home. All she wants is a shower and to ask a health care professional if it is normal for an infant to glow with everlasting light after being born. But instead, she has these three kings bringing three gifts, only one of which she knows anything about. All she really needs is some money. The gold, it seems, is in the form of a foreign currency and will need to be exchanged into money that can be traded locally. Because it happens to be Christmas, all the banks are closed, so it appears, they’ll be spending another night in the manger. Perhaps one of these three kings could double up in the three rooms they reserved at the Four Seasons Bethlehem (because unlike Joseph, they actually printed out THEIR Expedia confirmation number). But apparently kings don’t “double up”.  And now this kid wants to play the drums right at her newborn baby for a “gift”, why doesn’t the kid just sell that thing and give Him a blanket?

I’m sure there are more horrible ideas trapped in other songs, but these are just a few that bother me. I’m actually quite happy with ignoring most of these nasty little song points and just build together the parts I like. If you think about these things too much, it will pull the joy out of Christmas. Joy and togetherness is what it’s supposed to be all about, and that’s the Damm truth.