Big Ugly Man Doll

And this is it.  Merry Christmas, and thank you all for reading, singing, and moaning along with my pain as we got through another round of holidays.  May your days be merry and bright, and may your ears not have to suffer any more than average until next year.

Here they are again, quickly.  Get it over with:

• Baby It’s Cold Outside (the Date Rape Song)
• Christmas Song, Alvin and the Chipmunks
• Mistletoe, Justin Bieber
• Happy Christmas / War is Over, John and Yoko
• We Need a Little Christmas
• Our Love is Like a Holiday, Michael Bolton
• Santa’s Beard, Beach Boys
• It’s a Marshmallow World, Dean Martin
• Feed the World, Band Aid
• Jingle Bells, Barking Dogs
• Dominick the Donkey
• It’s the Holiday Season, Williams Bros
• Last Christmas, Wham!
• 12 Days of Christmas
• All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
• I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas
• Holly Jolly Christmas, Burl Ives
• Santa Baby
• Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo, South Park
• Merry Christmas Darling, Karen Carpenter
• Stille Nacht, David Hasselhoff
• White Christmas, Lady Gaga
• It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Andy Williams

We close this list, saving, yes, the worst for the last.  You knew it was coming.  You always new.  Do you know, do you know, do you know what’s wrong with Christmas music?   Is it the shoes?

Christmas Shoes.  Look, as my good friend Shrek might have said, no dead chicks in the holiday songs.  No maudlin mommas meeting Jesus allowed.  Grandma, sure, she was killed by a reindeer, coming home from our house Christmas eve, but that’s it.  

I want to buy these shoes for my Mama,
there’s not much time,
I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight

Christmas Shoes is the worst Holiday Song in the world.  It’s so bad, it’s actually self-referential:  It’s like listening to Christmas Shoes.   If your momma meets Jesus tonight, kid, he’s not going to worry about what she’s wearing, and you know the only thing she’s going to worry about is Am I Wearing Clean Underpants?  You’re better off buying her some painkillers, really.  Can you imagine her reaction, opening that box?  “Oh, little Billy, thanks for these – they look great!  Too bad I’m never getting up again, Billy.  Could you push this button for me, a couple times, to kick-start the morphine drip again, Billy?  Thank you, there’s a good boy.”   Who wrote this?  Turns out, it was a group called NewSong.  Here’s a hint – how about a new, new song?  Because this one sucks.  Even Gawker says so – and I notice (with some pride, I have to add) that their list overlaps with mine in many places.

Some people call it Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some people call it the Holiday Blues.  We know better.  It’s the Christmas Shoes Effect, and it’s depressing as all hell.  Sad, Sad, Sad.  And, because you didn’t think it could get worse, it does.  Because the video has Rob Lowe in it.  You know, because we really needed Rob Lowe to show us how bad it can get around the holidays. 

So click.  Let me know if you get past the first 30 seconds.   And remember, here at the end of this list, here at the end of the Christmas season, after our orgies of destruction and wrapping paper, that we do this to ourselves.  Each year, we have heard these songs, and we have inflicted them on others – we have only ourselves to thank.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, it’s the penultimate horror.  We’re nearly at the end, and that’s a good thing for SO. MANY. REASONS. 

• Tomorrow’s Christmas.  That’s not a bad thing.
• The day after that, you are legally allowed to whack people playing Holiday tunes (as long as you use sticks under half an inch thick) in 37 out of 50 states and at least 2 Canadian provinces.  Chances are you’re in one of them, have at ’em.
• The food gets better the closer you get to Christmas.  Yesterday I had breakfast for breakfast, no lunch, and breakfast for dinner.  Today’s breakfast was homemade bagels with homemade GravLax cured salmon; Vietnamese Bahn Mi sandwiches with pate, shrimp, and god-only-knows-what kind of meat for lunch; and escargot, gougere cheese puffs, shrimp, and a selection of tapas-style pates and meats for dinner.  Tomorrow holds the promise of cow.  I’m not pouting.
• You won’t have to read any more of this list.  Could you BE more thankful?  I didn’t think so.
• Truly, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

And it is.  It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

If you’re a sadist!  Because I love shoulder-surfing the crowds, fighting the traffic, and listening to people telling me to “be cheerful!”  You know what?  I’ll be cheerful when the holidays are over.  GFY, and get outta the way. 

its the most wonderful time of the year
with the kids jingle belling
and everyone telling you be of good cheer

Jingle-belling?  We talked about the whole “verbing weirds language” bit, right?  And then later, we’re going to do some “misoltoeing” – which SOBUMD would tell me is another dumb, oblique way to ask for sex.  “Ho, ho, ho, Hey Hey, how about a little misoltoeing, baby?”  (Whack!)

there’ll be scary ghost stories
and tales of the glories
of Christmases long long ago

Um, scary ghost stories?  You know, the one about the cat-burglar who breaks into your house while you’re sleeping is actually scary enough; what’s with the random Halloween/summer camp reference?  I think maybe our boy Andy had had a few too much nog and got his holidays mixed up.  Next thing you know, it’ll be a Ron Paul Christmas, and we’re really going to be frightened.

So hurry up, click it, listen.  Get it over with.  You know what’s coming.  And it’s not just Santa.