And a Milk-Bone in a pear tree.

Traffic at the supermarket was on the light side Friday morning -- I could only suppose that people were still reeling from the celebrations or still had a lot of food left in the house. Maybe both. But I was there, although my list was short, and the PA system was still playing Christmas music -- mixed in with a few secular tunes, as it is important to detox slowly. 

Near the entrance I saw this for a big discount and snapped it up. It is billed as an advent calendar but it is NOT; it is a 12 Days of Christmas calendar, and therefore just a couple of days into its usefulness.  

 As you can see, Milk-Bone called this an "Advent Calendar for Dogs," but the theme is the "12 Days of Woof-mas." It works as a treat-a-day display as such, since there are 12 days of Christmas, but as an Advent calendar it would fall short by weeks. And yet, there it was, five dollars off, so apparently everyone is out of whack on this one. 

The thing has fold-out backing to stand up, and each little doghouse has a medium-sized treat from the Milk-Bone catalog behind it. Had I bought this new it would have cost ten bucks, which is way too much for a handful of treats for a heathen dog. (He was blessed on St. Francis's feast day, but still.) Actually, five bucks was still too much, but it was worth it for the novelty. 

Well, pup got two treats yesterday and will get two today, on the fourth day of Christmas, and that will bring him up to speed. One way or another, I am sure he is enjoying them more than he would four calling birds, which would probably just fly off and annoy him. Ditto the French hens et al. A treat in the hand is worth any number of birds in any number of bushes to a dog. Actually, for me too. 

A small light.

The smallest window in the house is in the laundry room, which faces the side and does not provide much visibility for anything. However, I still stick a light-up angel there every year, because you can see it from the street as you come down the hill. The front windows are accounted for; the east side of the house has no windows at all. On the west side is just the one tiny window, and it has an angel in it. 

One of the oddest memories of Christmas I have is sitting in the backseat of the family's car on the way home. It was a few days after the holiday itself, and we'd been to see family friends -- and stayed out late, much later than we normally did, hours after midnight. I remember it was cold, maybe cold enough for Mom to recommend the blanket that we kept in the back of the car, which was made of rubberized plastic and had frozen and was not much help.

It seemed like the whole town, the whole city was asleep as we pulled away. Houses were dark; if anyone still had Christmas lights up, they had unplugged them. It was all just black, bleak, cold winter to look forward to now. 

I recall seeing one light, though, in the window of a large house before we got to the main road. I used to think it was a Santa Claus face, outlined in green lights, but as time goes on I am not certain. What I do know is how it made me feel -- some joy, some peace, but mostly longing for that one holiday light in that one small window of that dark house in that whole dark town. I have forgotten what it looked like, but I have never forgotten its effect on me. 

Christmas was not over, it said; in fact, in a crucial way, Christmas is never over. Sometimes the smallest things have the largest greatest strength; no amount of darkness can dim the smallest light. The tiny miracle of Christmas opens the door to all the others, and it is Christmas every day. 

So I wish you a very happy, peaceful Christmas, today and all of your days. Thank you for reading, and best of all things to you. 

Christmas earworm.

Got a famous Christmas number stuck in my head. I replace it with something else but it keeps coming back.

Is it a gorgeous hymn like "O Holy Night" or "Hark, the Herald Angeles Sing"? Is it a beautiful poem set to music like "O Little Town of Bethlehem"? Is it a hopping number like "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" or "Little St. Nick" or even "Christmas in Killarney"? 

Nope. 

Actually it's the Mellencamp version that I heard in the supermarket, so it could be worse. It wasn't the original or the Spike Jones version or anything with soggy child singers; it wasn't the Jackson 5 version either. Nor was it Kip Addotta's "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus," so I guess I ought to be grateful. 

Still, Christmas time is about the only time you can hear music in public that isn't less than fifteen years old, so I kind of hate when a lousy song wheedles its way in. 

Well, thanks to Dr. Stiiv, I know the cure for earworms. It may not be particularly festive, but the theme from Danger!! Death Ray (courtesy of MST3K) is known to drive other music out of active memory. 

Wishing you a boppa-dop-doppa-bop-bop Christmas! 

Christmas roundup.

The thermometer says it is no degrees outside -- yes, friends, we are at Absolute Zero -- so it's winter! And that means Christmas is coming. It's practically here! 

Today I offer a brief roundup of some memes and candy that have popped up on my radar lately. Sweetness abounds. 

I thought this was hilarious, but I had to explain it to a couple of people. It took me a moment also, to be fair. 

I love this one because I never liked the movie and I hated the book. 

Chico had the Man's number, I think.

Next up, further proof that one day all the memes will join together into one Mega Meme. 

Guess what I found in my local supermarket on Saturday, December 20? That's right -- Valentine's Day Candy!

TV listing from Sunday -- tell me you've never see the special without telling me. 

I think AI is writing them now. 

And that brings us to a visit with longtime friend of this blog: PEEPS

Yes, we've reviewed Peeps and Peep Accessories many times on this page -- even other Christmas-themed Peeps, a decade ago. But we've never seen Gingerbread (or, as the yellow box notes, "Gingerbread FLAVORED") Peeps before. I'm a fan of the plucky little Just Born company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but I am cautious. Can these possibly be any good?

Verdict: Yes, if you like marshmallow and you like the flavor of gingerbread and you think they'd work well together. Unbelievably sweet, of course, as the outer flavoring is also sugared, much as so many pumpkin spice treats in the fall include sugar. I think you need it; lightly melted sugar helps other flavorings stick, first of all, and second, sugar has a lovely and underrated texture all its own. But man, this is sweet. 

You might drop one of these dudes in a cup of (mostly unsweetened) cocoa and let him melt; I think that would taste good, although you hate to see a friendly face get the Wicked Witch treatment. 

So there's some hot and cold takes for this last Monday before Christmas. Hope to post tomorrow, but definitely on Christmas Day. 

Totally provoked.

 

Santobsessed.

 I think in America we have a kind of mental development of Santa that runs like this:

1. Clement Clarke Moore publishes his famous poem in 1823

2. Thomas Nast draws Santa in 1863

3. Coca-Cola gives us a common picture of Santa in 1930

4. Rankin and Bass do the rest, starting 1964 

But there's a lot that gets left out of that outline. We've been Santa obsessed for quite some time. A search for "Santa Claus" on Discogs returns 27,895 hits. A quick look at the priceless Gutenberg Project site reveals books about Santa Claus that I did not know existed, and maybe the same is true for you. Sixty-one titles pop up on the site if you search there for "Santa Claus." For example:

A Reversible Santa Claus by Meredith Nicholson (1917)

This is a curious book by a curious writer; Nicholson was, among other things, a US envoy to three different countries. But he had been an Indiana newsman and loved to write, apparently. Here's the Amazon description of this book: 

A reformed thief known as Billy “the Hopper” – named for the ease with which he’s always made his escapes - has retired with one last haul and settled down on a chicken farm with his wife, Mary, and another former thief, Humpy. Mary used to be a pickpocket. Humpy used to raise chickens in jail, so he’s got valuable experience. All three of them are glad to be living a quiet life within the law, but one day the Hopper sees a wallet sticking out of someone’s jacket on the train and is unable to resist pocketing it. This sets in motion a chain of events that results in the Hopper inadvertently kidnapping a toddler.

Not sure how much actual Santa Claus is in this one, but it's the book on this list I'm most interested in reading. I'm wondering how "reversible" works into the "Santa Claus" too. Does that mean Hopper comes down the chimney and takes stuff away, like a proto Grinch?

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A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum (1904)

Some of you may recall that Oz creator Baum had written a biography of Santa, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, in 1902, which was adapted for TV by Rankin-Bass in 1985. This one is really a short story, but one of the first in the Evildoers Threaten Christmas subgenre that has proved so durable. In it, the Daemons who live in the caves near Happy Valley and hate Santa all the time decide to kidnap him so he can't bring happiness to the children. But the various magical creatures that help Santa (not elves -- ryls, knooks, pixies, and fairies) manage to get Santa's presents delivered. Santa is released on Christmas Day by the frustrated bad guys. (Sorry; spoiler alert!) Well done, knooks & co. 

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A Defective Santa Claus by James Whitcomb Riley (1904)

Although not so well remembered today, Riley was another Indiana writer, exceptionally popular in his time for poems and stories for and about children. The book is actually a poem in dialect that, like so much of his work, harks back to simpler times in the 1800s. 

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Christmas in Storyland, edited by Maud Van Buren and Katharine Isabel Bemis (1927)

I don't know anything about the editors of this volume, but it's exactly what you'd expect -- a book of Christmas stories for children. Santa plays a part in many of them, naturally. That same year the editors also released Christmas in Modern Story: An Anthology for Adults. Back when "adult audiences" just meant "the kids won't like it."

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Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land, and Other Stories by Ellis Towne, Sophie May, and Ella Farman (1878)

Lill with The Man Himself. Moore's reindeer names 
are used in the book (Dasher, Dancer, et al.) 

The book doesn't say which author wrote which story (there are four in the book), but the star is definitely Lill, who in the first tale explains how she happened to come upon Santa Claus Land while walking and met the big guy. At the end she tells us that Santa Claus Land is not in a fixed place, and she has been unable to find it again. 

🎅🎅🎅

Tommy Trot's Visit to Santa Claus by Thomas Nelson Page (1908)

Tommy Trot looks like what is now a pretty standard Christmas story for kids. One summary says, "The story follows a young boy named Tommy Trot who goes on a magical adventure to visit Santa Claus at the North Pole. Along the way, he meets a variety of friendly creatures, including a talking reindeer and a group of mischievous elves. As Tommy explores the enchanting world of Santa's workshop, he learns valuable lessons about kindness, generosity, and the true meaning of Christmas." Which sounds like movie adaptation of The Polar Express, although a non-psychotic version. 

Page also wrote A Captured Santa Claus (1902) (very different from the Baum Kidnapped story, featuring Civil War veterans) and Santa Claus's Partner (1899), so he knew from Santa stories. He also had a very romanticized view of the Old South that pretty much guarantees his books for adults will be painful to modern eyes. 

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Santa Claus' Sweetheart by Imogen Clark (1906)

In case you wondered where Hallmark got the idea to do Christmas movies:

The story follows Jessica, a young bakery owner who finds herself falling for a mysterious man named Nick who bears an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. As their romance blossoms, Jessica discovers that Nick has a special connection to Christmas that transcends the ordinary. Clark's delightful narrative captures the spirit of the season with its themes of love, hope, and second chances. Through vivid descriptions and endearing characters, she transports readers to a charming world where miracles can happen and love is always in the air. "Santa Claus' Sweetheart" is a perfect read for anyone looking to experience the joy and wonder of Christmas all year round.

A short novel, looks pretty sweet. 

🎅🎅🎅

Santa Claus' Message: A Christmas Story by E. Franklin Tregaskis (1921)

I have found almost nothing about E. Franklin Tregaskis beyond this Australian story, a short one that takes place in a crapped-out gold mining settlement called Twenty-Foot, where only two men are still trying to get something of value out of the ground as Christmas approaches. One is an old-timer, the other a man with a family, and there's been no rain to sluice out what thin pickings might be had. Then a mysterious message appears... Anyway, this shows that Australia's been Santobsessed just as we have.

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I haven't even mentioned all the storybooks on Gutenberg that have some Santa Claus in passing, or the plays for children that are up at the site (because parents always want to see the kiddies put on a performance). And who knows how many other Santa stories are out there that Gutenberg hasn't gotten to yet? 

All of this is to say that our love of Jolly Old Saint Nicholas is not new; it is a very sturdy part of the American culture, and God bless Santa Claus. May his stories always point the way to the One whose great story among us we celebrate on Christmas Day. 

Always check references.

 

Crushalogs IV: The Revenge.

As a continuing social project, I am examining the volume and weight of catalogs I receive in the mail as the Christmas shopping season gins up into high gear. This is the fourth time I have done this. It's not as scientific an examination as I would hope; I have done these on different dates in November, and I have not spaced the years out evenly. 

In a nutshell, or perhaps a mailbox, I have been curious as to whether online advertising is killing the mail catalog business, so I have been looking at whether the sheer weight of catalogs has been decreasing as time goes on. Are they still considered an effective way to reach potential customers? If so, the overall catalog weight should be increasing or staying about the same. If not, it should be dwindling like the number of non-"commemorative edition" publications on the supermarket checkout magazine racks. 

Here are the results from the three previous entries:

Crushalogs I: November 4, 2016 -- Several weeks earlier in November than this year, and I estimated more than 10 pounds to that time; the catalogs seemed to be thicker eight years ago, but I may have exaggerated the total weight. Bad science, me! 

Crushalogs II: November 8, 2019 -- I also did not make either a count or a weight of the catalogs in 2019. I do note that in 2019, as in 2016, there was a giant dump at the beginning of November. This year it seems to have been parsed out over the month. I wonder if that is because Thanksgiving is so late in 2024?

Crushalogs III: November 19, 2022 -- Two years ago I did weigh the catalogs, and got a total of two pounds. Well, I think I can beat that weight this year! 

So let me load the catalogs into a plastic shopping bag, and then use the old luggage scale... And: 

Almost four pounds! So it looks like catalog mailings are up this year, double by weight from '22. It seems like in a lot of areas, smart businesses are pulling back from the new technological approaches and going back to what works. Maybe catalogs really are the way to reach holiday shoppers. After all, TV viewership is down, landline phones are way down, but if you live somewhere, you have a mailbox. It's a lot easier to focus on a few quality selections in a catalog than deal with the firehose of dubious miscellanea from online stores (hello, Amazon). If a company doesn't just chuck a lot of cheap Chinese crap at its clients, its catalog will likely be of higher interest. 

MAI Fulfillment says one of the advantages of mail catalogs is that they offer measurable results for businesses, justifying the large expenses of design, printing, and mailing. It depends on what kind of customers are being targeted, I supposed. 

What will 2025 bring to the catalog business? Oh, who knows. I have no idea what's coming down the road. I'm grumpy enough now. Maybe next year I'll go full Grinch and steal all the catalogs from all the mailboxes in Whoville and use them to build a giant bonfire to scare off the Whos. Not likely, but who can say what the future holds?

You’d better watch out!

We had a very dry and pleasant and even warm autumn to this point, so now we're getting it in the shorts. First there were wildfires, which I have never seen in the lower tier of New York State. They followed on the heels of drought warnings as day follows the night. Containing those bastard fires was extremely tough for our local firemen, and a big salute goes out to them. 

When it rained all day yesterday, it was a big relief. People always say "We needed the rain," but we really needed it this year. It usually rains here a lot, especially in November, which is normally a big gray wet smear of a month. And this is why we almost never have to deal with wildfires. 

Prior to the rain, a lot of the locals started to get their Christmas decorations out. I just can't do it before Thanksgiving, but I didn't fault them for taking advantage of the clement weather. I too have hung ribbons and lights in cold so miserable I could barely feel the fingers that were doing the work. But I just couldn't focus on doing the job this soon.  

Note that for some folks, the beginning of
Yuletide does not mean the end of 
Gloattide. 

I know when I drag the decorations out of the cellar, I will get that powerful feeling that I had just put them away. It happens annually, and the feeling is stronger each year, because of the ol' toilet paper situation, that life -- like a roll of TP -- goes faster the further along you are. 

And alas! I probably should have put my porch lights up already as well, because as I write this at 3:30 in the morning on Friday, it is snowing like (to use the technical, meteorological term) bejeezus out there. The dog sensed that this would be a bad time to have to go out to pee in the yard, so he woke up at three and started whining. And here we are. 

Compounding this, it's garbage day! Which means I don't know if I should take the can up to the street or not, as the trashmen will have to avoid the plows. The plow might even nail my Rubbermaid, which sounds vaguely pornographic. So now I don't even know what I'm doing. 

Jupiter pluvius, I guess, but sometimes his schedule is very inconvenient for me. 

Good boy?

I know it's been several days since Christmas, and you're wondering if I've been naughty or nice. In other words, did I get any loot? Naughty boys get nuttin' for Christmas, I'm told, 'cause they ain't been nuttin' but bad. 

Well, I guess I was pretty darn nice this year! Get a load of this haul! 

Battery-powered lights for under the cabinets! That should make cooking in the dark much easier! 

A travel size bottle of the classic Gold Bond Body Powder in Original Strength! It's a present just to not be told I need Extra Strength. 

A tortilla-warming thing for the microwave! No more messing around with damp paper towels to keep the wraps moist as I do one or two at a time (which is a lie -- I'm doing the whole package at once! Try to stop me!). Can't wait to try this for enchiladas next week!

And my favorite:

The toothpaste roller! Lovely, elegant design that squeezes the ever-lovin' snot out of your tube of toothpaste, of whatever you got that comes in a tube. Prevents waste! Less filling! Literally! 

Okay, I kid because I love -- in my family, these are considered stocking stuffers, and the definition of a stocking is pretty loose. Shaq doesn't wear socks big enough for all this. These are "in addition to" type gifts, and much appreciated. And I'm not just being nice when I say they're all getting used. The toothpaste roller is already a hit in the can! 

Run run Rudolph.

One of my very earliest memories was standing on line at preschool, desperately excited to tell the teacher something of great importance. I remember that I liked her, although I do not recall her name or face; I remember the room, but not one other student; and I remember we were all on line so she could inspect us, whether for proper dress or lice or what I have no idea. My focus on was telling this person that I had seen Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on TV the night before. The Rankin-Bass special had been running for a while by then, but to me it was new, and I was so excited I wanted to tell someone, anyone! 

So I did, and she gave me a "That's delightful" or something while giving me the check, then sent me on my way. I could hardly believe it was possible that someone wouldn't have been equally excited about Rudolph, but adults were always weird and inscrutable. 

The reason I write about this today is I realized this is the first year to have passed without me seeing one single Rankin-Bass Christmas special, nor anything by Rankin and Bass, nor in fact any of the childhood favorites at all (Charlie Brown, Grinch, and so on). Even when I was a single, happenin' young dude I would always make time for the classics. It just didn't happen this year.  

It's true that I've been really busy, and also true that the dog hardly ever chills out long enough for me to just sit down and watch a TV show. (If the TV was in the backyard, I could watch epic movies out there.) And certainly, having seen these specials dozens of times, I think I'm familiar enough with them that I feel no overwhelming urge to engage with them now. Nostalgia is a strong pull at Christmastime, though. So where were they? 

Since I was a wee tot, the atomization of common culture has marched along, first slowly, then at rocket speed. Whereas everyone once watched the same handful of VHF networks (and were derided as dummies by the intelligentsia for it), there soon arose decent UHF, followed by cable, followed by home video machinery, and now online streaming. It's pretty rare that anyone watches the same thing at the same time in any large numbers now. TV networks used to try to fight for space by going big -- now they go cheap. Reality shows are the order of the day. But what could be cheaper than a 60-year-old animation? 

Ah, but in the interim, all those old specials went to videotape, DVD, and now posted online and to streaming services. Sure, the old Rankin-Bass specials might pop up on Disney's "Freeform" (once the Family Channel, when Disney cared about the family), but they are treated like poor relations coming around looking for a handout. Instead, we can watch green Jim Carrey steal presents and fat Tim Allen deliver them and that creepy train movie again and again. Seems weird to me, but I guess they know their business. 

Freedom of choice is a good thing, but the culture has become so shattered that I wish we still had some things we enjoyed in common. Taylor Swift is not going to bring us all together, trust me. But once, long ago, a red-nosed reindeer did a pretty good job of it. 

Gloria, in extremis.

“This life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness.”

My mom loved Christmas dearly, and she instilled that love in me. My dad really seemed to think anything out of the normal work routine was a waste of time and money. Dad had had no religious upbringing. Mom had had plenty, but when a death in the family plunged the survivors into chaos, with the real threat of crushing poverty, it seemed to have drained all hope in God out of her. 

So here I am on Christmas morning, praying for them both. In my darkest days, bouncing from thoughtless atheism to agnosticism or to flirting with paganism, I never stopped loving Christmas. It was like the net that God used to keep me from drifting away from Him entirely. 

Folks in the neighborhood going big on Christmas spirit.

At one point in my childhood Mom decided we should start going to church -- although not Dad, who was uninterested and worked seven days a week anyhow -- but I believe that her heart was never in it. Kids can tell. If Mom is just doing it because a friend thought it would be a good idea, or because Mom thinks it will keep the kids from growing up bad, but has no desire for the thing herself, kids know. If Mom doesn't really care, why should we? The experiment didn't last more than a few months. Then it was back to the bulk of my faith formation being episodes of Davey and Goliath (because there was little else for kids on Sunday morning in those days, young'uns).

But Mom sure did pray, and mostly because of us lousy kids. Rather than the Our Father or the Glory Be she prayed the "What did I do to deserve this, Lord?" And she wasn't saying it to be funny. 

I have found that there's a real problem with praying in extremis only, having done a lot of that myself, and it's that the heart in those times cannot bear anything but instant relief from the terrible situation that brings on the prayer. But as that relief is usually not forthcoming immediately, despair rapidly follows. Whereas those in a greater habit of devotion are usually able to muster patience and hope in darkness. My mom had a million wonderful attributes, but the ability to find hope in dire situations was not one of them. 

I'm a Catholic now, and I do try maintain some discipline of faith, but it's always going to be a little like speaking a second language to me. My main language is that of fear and pessimism -- the language of my people. But Christmas I knew of as a word of hope in a long book of terror and darkness.  

I really love this banner. I don't know if it's really old or just made
to look old, but it's beautiful. 

I wish you a very happy Christmas and a blessed new year. Keep the light shining -- darkness cannot defeat it, but it sure as hell is always going to try. 

What's up with Whos?

Something has been bothering me for many years, and it's about time I said something about it. Here we go:

What's the deal with the Whos? 

I was a pretty small kid the first time I saw the Chuck Jones adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Even then I was concerned about the ending. Because the fact is, if I woke up on Christmas morning to find that I'd not only gotten nothing from Santa Claus, but that all our decorations and stuff were missing, I would not drift out to the middle of town with my eyes closed in delight to start singing. I'd have given the Grinch exactly what he hoped to hear -- hysterics.

Santy Claus thinks I've been naughty!!!!! 😭

That seemed to me to be the flaw in the story: It only works if you believe that we, like the Whos, would react with holiness and brotherhood to the Grinch's massive heist. From early childhood, I had my doubts.

Imagine -- the whole town has had everything removed. The presents, all the decorations, the whole shebang. The Grinch didn't just take the food for the big feast, he took all the food, every morsel, every can of Who Hash. These people were in an isolated, snowbound community. They were going to be pretty damned hungry. 

What conclusions could the Whos draw? That not only had everyone in town been really naughty, they had in fact been so incredibly naughty that Santa took things that belonged to them already? What could cause THAT kind of Santa smackdown? I knew we shouldn't have collaborated with the Nazis!  

And that's assuming that Santa Claus is real in the Seussverse. If Mom and Pop had bought all the gifts, the police would be called. When the cops saw how widespread the emergency was, they'd probably figure it was the Grinch. Hmm, who do we know that hates everyone and hates Christmas? Everyone else lives in town and lost all their stuff. It's got to be the old green freak on the mountain! A raid would be ordered on Mount Crumpit, and the Grinch might die in a hail of bullets, defiant to the end. 

We hope Max would get a good home. 

What I'm saying is, I wish I could think of me and the other people I knew of as being like the Whos, who in the face of loss and maybe hunger, still go out to Dahoo Dores in the town square. 

I think in reality the Grinch would have been right on the money -- people would be upset. It doesn't mean that the Grinch is not a big fat jerk, because he is. It just means that home invasion, felony theft, property damage, and the removal of all food, in addition to ruining everyone's Christmas, is no laughing matter. 

It would be a real challenge for any population to resume its duty of faith and gather to praise God (or whatever the Whos were doing with that song) in the face of this situation. I do think normal human Christians would still want to follow their plans and go to church, but they would still be upset, and anyway they'd probably have to spend the day filling out police reports. They certainly would be hard pressed to act like nothing had happened, however devoted to the celebration of the Birth of the Savior. 

The Whos seem to be made of better stuff than we are, which is good for them, but as I say, undermines the story. Because if we were Whos and were just as confounded and hysterical as the Grinch had hoped, then the green a-hole would have felt justified in his Grand Theft Christmas. Which makes it seem like Seuss got it wrong, and we don't really know the true meaning of Christmas. 

Maybe we should view the story as aspirational. Maybe like the Grinch, we should bump up our own hearts a size or two and be more like the Whos. 

But with better presents. I never wanted any great big electro whocarnio flooks. Too loud, too complicated. 

UPDATE! Couldn't resist:

Mariah's no pariah.

In November, as the Christmas season nears, the memes begin of Mariah Carey being unfrozen/reanimated/set loose among the populace to let the world know that "All [She Wants] for Christmas Is Yooooou." They poke fun at her like she never had any other hit songs.

But it is true that her pop music Christmas song is popular and played frequently in public places and at gatherings. One reason for this is that most modern Christmas songs are lousy, so with a few exceptions like this one we play the old favorites. It's really the only time we hear songs older than the Baby Boomers anywhere in public. When else are you going to have Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, or Andy Williams on the store PA system?

Plenty of people complain about Carey's song. I would hazard a guess that most of them work in retail. For the rest of us, we ought to remember that it really is a pretty good number, and for that I have no less an expert on the American Songbook than Mark Steyn to back me up. 

I miss Steyn's Song of the Week feature from when he could devote more time to his site. About "All I Want for Christmas Is You," he is as always intelligent in his praise. In 2014 he called it "the biggest addition to the seasonal songbook in decades," and that hasn't changed. 

The song, by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, expresses a Christmas wish more directly than other seasonal love songs like "Baby, It's Cold Outside" or "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" or the Carpenters' "Merry Christmas, Darling." It goes right to the heart of the matter: It's Christmas, I want one thing for a present, and that thing is you. Not a lot of beating about the bush. The melody is fun to listen to because it moves all up and down the scale. It starts with a slow, dramatic setup, then bursts into a galloping 150 beats per minute, the heartbeat of someone in the heat of passion. The words bang out on quarter notes in 4/4 as it goes, so you never lose the rhythm from the rhyme. It's no wonder that, as Steyn says, almost everyone who's covered the song has done it the same up-tempo way Carey did. It works.  

So I will defend this song against the doubters, especially snobs who dismiss all pop music as being dumb and artless simply because it's popular. 

My only problem with Carey is that she tried to parlay her fame into trademarking herself as the Queen of Christmas. It seems to have been kind of a jerk move against a relative unknown, but frankly, we all know who the real Christmas Queen is. 

No, Lucy -- Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, the one who actually went to the trouble of giving birth on Christmas. 

Anyway, while I'm not a fan of Ms. Carey, I can certainly say I respect her, and I enjoy her Christmas song. As I noted, most modern Christmas songs are pretty bad, and that's including County and Western ones -- maybe especially including those. The cheese factor is usually through the roof. 

🎅🤶🎅🤶🎅🤶

Also, there is the topic of Whamageddon. 

Wham!'s "Last Christmas," as I believe Steyn pointed out elsewhere, is a meh song, and barely has anything to do with Christmas; the lyrics could just as easily have been "Last Tuesday, I gave you my heart..." 

I'm a passive player in Whamaggedon, in which one tries to go the 24 days leading up to Christmas without hearing that 1984 song. A guy I know crashes and burns out of Whamageddon early every year, but he goes to the gym a lot, and he's always out with his young kids. That's just asking for it. This year I made it all the way until December 18, when I walked into the post office. I wanted to tell the clerk "You ruined my Whamageddon!" But I'm sure he's had to listen to "Last Christmas" a thousand times since last Halloween, so why bother him about it? 

Keeping tabs, Christmas style.

People around here move a lot. What would you expect? It's New York, a state that actively hates its elderly. People retire, they flee. The kids move out, they flee. Or they just flee. This state is run by criminals, stupid heads, and criminal stupid heads. 

It's still a hot market here in the lower Hudson Valley, because as lousy as it is here it's worse the closer you get to the city. So it can be hard to tell from one month to the next if the occupants are the same as they were a month earlier. Sometimes there are indicators of a change. 

Way back in 2016, while walking the dog, I noticed the Christmas tree in one family's picture window. It was there through December, of course, and into January 2017. Way into January. ALL the way into January. Way into February. It became a topic of some conjecture on this blog. Was there a family member who has volunteered to take the tree down and was just lazy? Did someone die and the house just fell into chaos? Or was it a bone of contention between warring factions of children? ("I'll take the decorations down but BILLY has to help me." "No way! That's YOUR job!") I never knew. But one day as spring was peeping over winter's transom, we saw the tree was gone. 

Whatever caused the tree to stay up so long, the incident was not repeated in subsequent years.

But this year, the moment I saw the house decked out in lights, I knew it had new owners. 

Not that the previous owners did no outdoors decor -- they were just more reserved. Once your house lights require ladders, your reservations are out the window. The new people went game.

And indeed, I was right. I checked in Zillow, and the house had been sold over the summer. Fast, too -- I don't go that way every day, but I never saw a For Sale sign out front. 

So welcome to the new folks, and thanks for bringing some light into a darkened world. Especially in New York, where our governing class has dark hearts and occluded brains. We need all the hope we can get. 

🎄🎄🎄

Lingo-Fact! The phrase "keeping tabs" goes back to tabs as in bar and restaurant tabs, and is believed to have come from the tablets upon which one would write the debt. But that's not certain; in fact, the origin of tab as a noun is simply unknown, according to Merriam-Webster.

December: The Catalog Reckoning.

Back on December 1, I posted about the catalogs I had already received that were Christmas-themed. By that date I had received 14 catalogs. I thought you'd like to see what the pile looks like now. 

There we have it, friends! Thirty-nine catalogs as of December 1. Weighs close to eight pounds -- about as much as a dozen Charlie Brown trees. 

The pile could have been higher, but I excluded some catalogs. For example, Lands' End sent us a Christmas gift catalog, but also a winter-wear catalog; since the latter was not holiday-themed, it did not count. To make the stack, the catalog had to be Christmassy, intended to sell gifts or decorations. 

Some, like Grandin Road and Shutterfly, sent only one; others sent more. Herrschners, Ross-Simons, Hammacher Schlemmer, and the Vermont Country Store sent multiples. No surprise on that, since we've made purchases from these merchants in the past. Maybe not in fifteen years, but it is the season of hope. 

To date, the number of purchases inspired by this stack of catalogs has been approximately 0. However, their arrival always serves to remind us that they are there and that they have nice stuff, so if that motivates one of us to check out the company site, it's a win for them.

Maybe I should scour these catalogs, since I do not know what to get for my wife. Any ideas? And don't say Fredcoin. She could wallpaper the living room with Fredcoin for all she cares. 

Shopping, then and now.

When I was a pitiful waif in the city, the little shops along the streets were already in dire straits. Even in the outer boroughs of New York City, the automobile was taking its toll on neighborhood stores. People would drive to Jersey, Long Island, Yonkers to go buy stuff. And when those boroughs got official shopping malls of their own, it was devastating. Local service stores like the barber shop and the TV repairman could hold on, but the dress shops, the record stores, the card shops? Their time was dwindling. 

Everyone knew what the future was going to be like -- the world would be based on a shopping-mall structure, the humans merely consuming drones, the cities dead or gone. 

Science fiction writer Somtow Suckaritkul wrote a series of stories called Mallworld that were later published in book form. Humanity was living in a planet-sized mall that was hurtling toward doom, but all we could do was live mall culture. Howard Chaykin wrote and drew an indie comic called American Flagg!, set in a future where the elites govern Earth from Mars and people live and work in fortified Plexmalls, and the titular hero is essentially a mall cop. Warren Zevon released a song in 1989 called "Down in the Mall" that poked fun at our obsession with mall culture. We were all doomed to be mallrats by 2020 at the latest. 

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to Mallmageddon. 

Everything supplants something, and what Internet shopping has done to our shopping malls makes us wistful for the good ol' days of mallmania. No one wants to admit it. We are willing to admit that the big cities’ shopping scenes in old movies, where people shop for Christmas in little emporia and big department stores, looks pretty cool. But the mall? 

Yeah, well -- it was social, at least. We got out of the house. We didn't freeze while going from store to store. There were plenty of places to look for stuff, so if you couldn't find anything you wanted to get Aunt Hildy, maybe it was time for you to reexamine your feelings about Aunt Hildy, because man, there was something for everyone. Maybe you really just don't want to get Hildy a present. Did you ever think of that?

Also, you could play in the arcade, get a bite to eat, check out new books or records, even take in a movie if your mall had a theater. So maybe the mall had something to say for it. 

The old department stores -- which had supplanted a lot of little stores -- did have one thing that the malls could not match -- awesome window displays at Christmas. 

Lord & Taylor window, 1980. Christmas scene set
in the landmark Daily News Building lobby. L&T's windows were 
always better than Macy's.

Lord & Taylor is defunct, and I don't feel so good myself. 

Oh, well -- the old guard passes etc. None of us wants to give up the convenience of shopping from home, least of all my wife. 

Going out on a present-buying excursion usually entailed some frustration, loss of patience, and possibly screaming kids. But it also could have something that's in real short supply these days -- good, clean fun. Where do we go to get fun back in our lives?

About town.

Just a couple of holiday-related visions for you on this Monday morning, to give you the oomph to get through the next three days. You're welcome!

 

Bat Tree

In the dark of the morning I was walking golden Izzy, America's Sweetheart, and while he was sniffing about I did similarly with photons, which is to say I looked up into the tree with the headlamp on my forehead. There was this small Batman-themed bag, about ten feet off the ground, just hanging there like a hornet's nest. I was and am mystified by it. It looks too small to be a kid's schoolbag, too childlike to be a mom's miscellanea bag, too difficult to operate to be a Halloween candy bag, too landlubbery to be a sailor's ditty bag. What could it be? What's in it? I'll bet Catwoman is involved. She probably stole it from Bruce and got stuck up in the tree.  

Barbie vs. Minions

It's time for the gingerbread house kits again, and of course even they have to be branded now with pop culture-themed crap. I suspect there might be a Star Wars (TM) Death Star gingerbread house out there somewhere. My wife and I will have more than enough cookies around without gingerbread, but out of curiosity I asked which of these would appeal to her. She loves the Minions, but she was a Barbie girl throughout childhood, and has even made it a point to give Barbie dolls to girls whose moms were reluctant to introduce their daughters to the world of everyone's favorite toy blonde. To my surprise, though, she liked the Minions kit better. She just thinks they are a hoot.  

Early to Decor

Friday was probably the last day we'll have in the sixties for four months, so a few people around here took advantage and did their outdoor decoration. I've never seen so many people decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving. Maybe they have in the past, but they didn't turn the lights on so I couldn't see them. 

Gator? Later

On the topic of seasonal inappropriateness: I knew exactly what this was from a ways off -- an alligator-shaped pool float. The property on which he reposed has no swimming pool. I can only suppose the wind carried him to this resting spot. People, take care of your gators and your gators will take care of you. Didn't we all learn that in first grade? 

Meanwhile, Back at the Wire

Remember this?

Two days after I put in the call, the power company got back to me. I was wrong, people! (Yes, it is possible!) This is a phone line, not a power line. Not that that makes it okay for the wire to dangle down to head level. So now I have to call the phone company. The adventure continues, and you can bet I'll milk a blog entry out of it keep you informed of further developments.  

November 1: Merry Christmas!

Happy November! Here is the roundup of Christmas catalogs so far. 

I've held on to all of them since the start of October. It's not a lot -- fourteen assorted catalogs. Some of them can be forgiven for arriving before the first trick-or-treater showed up at the door. You see Herrschner's in the lower left; that's a crafters' catalog, and crafters have been receiving Christmas-themed mailings since April. Some of those handmade Christmas presents take a looooong time. You think Ralphie's aunt threw together his pink nightmare bunny suit overnight?

Also, we have a couple of Catholic catalogs, and they feature items that the faithful may want for Advent. Advent begins on December 3 this year -- actually later than usual -- and if you want an Advent wreath or Advent calendar, you'll want it soon after Thanksgiving. 

The others are just piling on, trying to get top-of-mind when the season starts in earnest. 

November 1 seems pretty early for Christmas, but you know what? All together these catalogs are smaller than the famous Sears Wish Book, which used to arrive right after Labor Day. So there's that.

The nogged truth.

Well, this little meme is making the rounds, and for good reason. 

I finally dug myself out from under a pile of work Friday and got to the supermarket Saturday. No, they were not playing carols over the PA system yet -- I seem to get there during Greatest Hits of the '80s Hour most of the time -- but the dairy aisle was a different story. Put on your crash helmet, kiddo, 'cause this will shake your noggin:

Wall of Mandatory Cheer

Half a cooler full of egg nog, on October 14. 

I have nothing against egg nog. I like it. I used to buy a quart every yuletide for olde tyme's sayke, but then I looked at the calorie count. I don't like it enough to undo months of avoiding sugar for one glass of egg nog. Eight ounces has about 340 calories. That's about the same as a vanilla milkshake, and I'd much rather have the milkshake if I'm going to splurge.

I'm quite impressed, though, at the choices. Some have booze, some don't, but just the fact that there are ten choices in this photo alone boggles my mind. When I was a kid there'd be one choice -- your local dairy would put out an egg nog, plus maybe a larger dairy like Borden, and you wouldn't see it until a week before Thanksgiving. It'd be gone by January 5. If you wanted liquor, you had to add it yourself. 

Anyway, it's just another sign that the Xmas Blob as we celebrate it is creeping up over Halloween, having completely swallowed Thanksgiving. It's one thing to live like the reformed Scrooge, to "honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." It's another to whip out the egg nog halfway through October. 

But all is not lost! We certainly still have displays with SPOOKtacular Halloween deals, and things like this: 

Yes, Campbell's Pepperidge Farm label made a deal with Dunkin' Donuts to make pumpkin-spice-doughnut-flavored graham-cracker Goldfish. My wife wanted to try them, so I had to relax the standards a little for the duration. Besides, graham crackers are health food, right? 

Verdict: Really good. Sweet but not too sweet, like Dunkin's non-iced doughnuts. And very fall-forward. 

Back off, egg nog! There are still leaves on the trees!