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? 

Undoer of knots.

Today is the Assumption of Mary in the Catholic Church, the day that commemorates Mary being assumed bodily into heaven, and normally a Day of Obligation in the church -- at least in places in the United States that have a lot of Catholics, like New York. However, when it falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, as this year, the obligation is abrogated. It's still recommended that we go to church, as Father pointed out yesterday.

One of Mary's less-known titles is Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. This is one that gets people's attention, maybe fishermen the most. It's an odd title, and of course there's a story to go with it. 

According to the Holy Rosary site, 

To show us the mission granted to the Virgin Mary by Her Son, artist Johann Melchior Georg Schmittdner painted Mary Undoer of Knots with great grace. Since 1700, His painting has been venerated in the Church of St. Peter in Perlack, Augsburg, Germany. It was originally inspired by a meditation of Saint Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyon and martyred in 202) based on the parallel made by Saint Paul between Adam and Christ. Saint Irenaeus, in turn, made a comparison between Eve and Mary, saying: “Eve, by her disobedience, tied the knot of disgrace for the human race; whereas Mary, by her obedience, undid it”.

The devotion to Mary is to untie the knots that hold us down, chain us to sin, threaten our families, make us confused and feel hopeless. I know a couple of women who, while not super-Catholic, are devoted to Mary as Undoer of Knots, and say they have found great peace through her.  

Sometimes you see a dedication to Mary under this title, as in this stained glass, but it's not typical. 

While Mary's concern is to undo spiritual knots (not cut or slash, but remove with care), I can imagine that fishermen, sailors, and Boy Scouts might have recourse to her, sure. I have a rosary that often seems to get knotted up in its little box, but sure enough the knot comes right out with a little tug. 

Immaculate Conception.

There are some erroneous concepts that need to be cleared up about this day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception:

1) It's not Jesus's conception. Even Catholics get this wrong. Jesus's miraculous conception is honored on March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation)---reasonably, nine months before his birthday is celebrated. It gets confusing, because with Christmas coming up, we're thinking about Jesus's babyhood. The Immaculate Conception is the day Mary was conceived, as she was born without Original Sin, unlike the rest of us slobs. But why is Mary's conception celebrated so close to Christmas---especially since we don't really know what dates any of these took place?

2) I'm not sure why December 8 was chosen, actually; a reading of the history of the feast shows that it arose slowly in the monasteries, and other dates were used at times. All I can say is that it should be celebrated and 12/8 had a 1 in 365.25 chance of being precisely right -- if you presume divine guidance along the way, the chances improve immeasurably.

Interestingly, the Annunciation is not a US day of obligation, meaning Catholics are not obliged to attend Mass that day, but the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is. Why?

3) Everyone knows that Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, that George is the patron saint of England, that Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, and that Archangel Michael is the patron saint of Papua New Guinea. (What, you didn't know that?) Well, the Virgin Mary, as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, is the patron saint of the United States of America. (A lot of Catholics don't know that, either.) (Brazil, too.) So it's not just a day of commemorating the Queen of the Saints; it's a national holiday in this country as well. Which is why, unlike other days of obligation like the Assumption of Mary into heaven (August 15) and All Saints Day (November 1), which may be abrogated in the U.S. if they fall on a Saturday or Monday -- in other words, the feast is moved to the neighboring Sunday -- the Feast of the Immaculate Conception always requires church attendance in America regardless of the day of the week upon which December 8 falls.

In the United States, and indeed throughout the Western Hemisphere, devotion to Mary is extremely strong. Her appearance at Guadelupe occured on December 9, 1531, when the church had barely arrived here. In 1859 she appeared three times in Wisconsin---really.

The church does not accept these things easily, by the way, so don't go running to the local parish because you see Mary in a potato chip. It is far easier for you or me to become a publicly proclaimed saint than to have a claim of an apparition from Mary accepted by Rome. It's true! We don't have to walk on water or chase all the snakes out of Cleveland; we just have to get murdered while preaching the Gospel. There's a lot of that about these days. Fans of Dan Brown's novels may think that people are getting killed because of the Catholic church's secrets, but in fact people are getting killed because of Christianity's very public knowledge.

On this feast day, I, as a Catholic, suggest you go visit your parish if you're Catholic, or even if you're not---what could it hurt? You might be inspired by it. You might even enjoy it.