I’ll resist appending”Electric Boogaloo” to the heading. No, no, no need to thank me. It was hard, but it was worth it.
Now where was I? Oh, yes, that was the basis for the post – “Where was I this last week?” Well, as much as I may bitch and moan about getting older, my father put everything in perspective by entering the hospital last week to clear out a heavily blocked carotid artery and have a stint inserted. Such procedures are no longer extraordinary, of course – good grief, they sent him home the next day – but we needed to be there to support my mom and, at my father’s insistence, “do Christmas” with them early.
Dad was in good humor for most of our visit, but kept having odd bouts of chills and fever, which had thankfully disappeared by the time we left.
But that’s not really why I sat down to write yesterday’s entry.
As mentioned earlier, we’ve been assaulted by Christmas imagery since late October. A local radio station has become “Your Official Holiday Music Station” since roughly that time, playing nothing but fa-la-la-la-al-derol. Since I am married to The Christmas Nazi, this means there has been nothing else on the car radio for the last two months, including during the drive to and from my parents.
What I discovered is that, according to this station, there are only six Christmas songs. Covered by a variety of artists, to be sure, but they are apparently the only ones worth playing:
- Winter Wonderland – the winner by a vast lead.
- Sleigh Ride
- It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
- Feliz Navidad
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Frosty the Snowman
– strangely, almost always the Gene Autry version, though they have played a very odd version by Dean Martin
When a Christmas carol not on this list is played, the novelty value is great. Surprisingly, given the gleeful aggression of faith-based interests hammering on the “Christ is the reason for the season” trope (since they were obviously given as large a mandate as El Presidente in the last election), the non-secular music is pretty sparse, running mainly to Silent Night and The Little Drummer Boy (just to complete the Rankin-Bass holiday special trifecta). None of my favorites, like Angels We Have Heard On High, or We Three Kings. Or Bob and Doug MacKenzie’s Twelve Days of Christmas.
On the home front, I have completed the next phase in my insidious plan of slowly replacing the Christmas music CDs with stuff I can actually tolerate. Last year it was Big Band Christmas, this year it’s Los Straitjackets’ Tis the Season For…
I’ll get through this with the help of those worthies and the occasional Nat King Cole piece on Your Official Holiday Music Station. If I don’t see you again before then, a Merry Christmas to all, and Bah, Humbug, depending on your needs.
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