Dave On Christmas Music

I’m not a great fan of Christmas music.  Traditional hymns, carols and songs I can generally tolerate quite well, unless it’s Jingle Bells, for which I am known to turn green, develop spontaneously rapid muscular hypertrophy and subsequently tear my shirt up, sending dear old Nan and her colostomy bag through the ceiling and beyond the Van Allen belts in a fit of blind rage that would probably wake Helen Keller.

But it is the 20^th century stuff that really boils my blood.  Granted, there are some songs that are bearable, and some that are even funny (Kevin Bloody Wilson, anybody?).   But there are countless more that will compel you to insert flesh-eating beetles into your ear canals.  The upside to such a drastic measure is, of course, that you’ll never have to put up with Bing Crosby carols ever again.  The downside is you’ll endure unspeakable agony as your eardrums are turned into insect poo by carnivorous arthropods.  And your Metallica records will of course be rendered as useful as a pedal-powered wheelchair.

Such an example of Yuletide cacophony would be the song “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” by Gayla Peevey, released way back in 1953.  The surname is really quite appropriate, because this song peeves me off.   To me, the singing resembles that of an epileptic Munchkin on hormone therapy.  And who wants a hippo for Christmas anyway, aside from poachers?  If you were to put a notoriously vicious African mammal on your Christmas wish list, it would be down there on the appropriateness scale with genital warts and the Ebola virus.  Or this very song, for that matter.

Elmo and Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”, is more tolerable, but no less stupid.  And the same goes for “Snoopy’s Christmas.” They are only acceptable for kids and George W. Bush.  In my opinion, any adult who is caught listening to either of these should be summarily ostracized and exiled to some small, irrelevant tribal village in Senegal to live out their days amongst flies and ox dung.

And please do not get me started on Bing Crosby either.  A great crooner he very well may have been back in his day, but he couldn't interpret Christmas songs any better than Zed from Police Academy could.  And plus, we live in an age where the modern family sits in front of a 42” HDTV watching Avatar, rather than an archaic AWA radio set listening to the dulcet tones of Vera Lynn.  Unless of course, you are a progressive Amish.

I believe that the aforementioned songs, as well as all Christmas material by Bing Crosby, make for excellent substitutes for waterboarding as a torture technique.  Mostly because they are far less humane, and probably cheaper as well.  The war on terror would be nothing but a minor schoolyard scuffle had they employed the services of Peevey, Elmo, Patsy and Co.  My advice – stick to hymns and carols, or, at the very least, comedy songs, like, “What Are We Gonna Get for ‘Er Indoors?”