Christmas Earworms

I am watching the store today; my husband had his Rotary Club meeting at noon and then has marching orders to get a haircut.  (I have strong feelings about long hair on men - eeeuuuchh.  His hair cannot be longer than mine.)

Needing a creative outlet I decided I'd play around with the look of my blog.  It's kind of like auditioning fabric for a quilt but without the patterns.  (If there were patterns available I'd never get anything done.  Seriously.  How much fun is this?) In between tweaks, I wait on customers, answer a lot of questions, and listen to Christmas music on either the radio or my Pandora.  I have strong feelings about music and a pretty broad spectrum of music I like. There are, however, a few changes to the cannon of Christmas music that I would like to change effective immediately.  They are as follows:

1. Dominic the Donkey should be banned from the entire planet.  It is the most obnoxious, stupid song ever written and screws itself into your brain like an earworm. I'm not an old fart - I love Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and the barking dogs Jingle Bells, but this donkey song is just vile.


2. Anything sung by Mariah Carey.  Mariah the Pariah has destroyed more Christmas songs than anyone on the planet.  Seriously - it sounds like someone is holding lit matches to her feet while she sings.  She makes me want to pour hot wax into my ears so I don't have to listen.


3. Synthesizers can serve a purpose (limited at best) but you can't seriously build your life or career or album around 5000 of them.  It is just waaaaaaaayyyy too much.  (Are you listening, Trans Siberia Orchestra?)


4. Metal bands doing Christmas songs.  I was in the grocery store the other night and it sounded like  Iron Maiden was singing Silent Night. Aside from being really offensive, it almost made me run out of the store. It was L O U D and causing the groceries in my cart to rattle from the vibrations.  It was surreal, like being caught in a  Stephen King nightmare.


5. Songs where a parent is drunk (Please, Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas) or dying (The Christmas Shoes). No further explanation needed.


6. The Little Drummer Boy. Nice concept, bad execution.  I've never heard a version of it where those "rump-a-pum-pums" didn't make my ears bleed.

One further admonition - just because you have successful recording contracts does not mean you can sing Oh Holy Night.  Very few people have the pipes and the talent to tackle that song and you should leave it to the people who do.  Chances are, Celine Dion, you are not one of them. Just sayin'.

For a consummate Christmas music experience  listen to a professional choir.  Choral singing is the most brilliant, beautiful and evocative way to listen to the songs you love best.  The Kings College Choir, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Cambridge Choir - any of them will reverberate in your soul.  Combined with their orchestral support (those French horns do me in every time) you are virtually guaranteed to be infused with love and light.  Alternatively,   you can shake yourself up a pitcher of icy martinis and listen to Eartha Kitt sing Santa Baby.  That'll put some holiday color in your cheeks!

Enjoy.