Every year for an entire month, we rekindle our seasonal obsession with thousands of Christmas songs and convince ourselves we’re happy because Josh Grobin’s illuminating voice leaves us no other choice.
We’re obsessive and delusional when it comes to Christmas songs. The evidence: There are enough of these archaic, utopian tunes on the radio to fill every landfill in America. They’re on the radio. They’re on TV. They’re on the Internet. They’re everywhere.
It’s also the one holiday each year with an entire music genre attached to it. How is that? And why do we call it “holiday music”? This is one area where political correctness is an outright lie. I’ve never heard a Hanukkah or Ramadan song on the radio in December. And what about all the other mainstream holidays? We’re bombarded with all this music about Christmas and Santa Claus, but the Easter Bunny can’t even get a name, let alone a good song. Santa’s pet reindeer all have names, but the magical, egg-laying bunny gets nothing.
The same goes for the Thanksgiving Turkey. No other holiday mascot is treated worse than the Thanksgiving Turkey. We act like it’s a friend. We even have children trace the character on their hands to display proudly on refrigerators. Then what do we do with our turkey friend? We rip out its guts, baste it, stuff it with a mushy food mixture, and cook the bird at an excruciatingly slow pace before devouring it without ever giving the turkey friend a name or singing a song about its jolly, plucky nature.
For Christmas, we sing classics like “Jingle Bells”, “Joy to the World”, “Little Drummer Boy”, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “White Christmas” and many, many others. Then every American singer is obligated to grace us with his or her versions of all the traditional songs, along with another round of his or her own original, sappy, irrelevant, completely unemotional tunes with lyrics like “gimme” and “imma”—all with the hope we’ll buy their superficial, unoriginal music as a gift for someone or ourselves.
Why do we obsess so much over Christmas music? We’re not really this happy for a whole month every year.
To counter this oversupply of cheerful music, I’m writing a collection of new Christmas songs set for release before the 2016 season, and plan to donate all royalty proceeds toward a new campaign aiming to give the Easter Bunny and Thanksgiving Turkey real names. They deserve their own songs, too.
These songs are meant to reflect a more balanced version of Christmas in homes across America. Imagine this list scrolling down on your TV because, you never know, some dreams do come true.
Song list:
“Dreams Never Come True”
“Santa’s OCD”
“Merry Whatever”
“Grandpa’s Wasted Again”
“Reindeer On The Grill”
“The Cousin Sally Flirt”
“Let’s All Get Fat”
“Christmas in the E.R.”
“Jumping From a Yuletide Bridge “
“Aunt Cranky Carol”
“Bloated Under the Mistletoe”
“This Ham Tastes OK”
“Woozy on Christmas”
“Oh, the Misery (Life)”
“Bipolar Christmas”
“We Can Hate Each Other Tomorrow”
“Most Depressing Time of the Year”
“Mrs. Claus Cheated”
“Santa’s Swinging”
“Santa’s Broke Again”
“Blood Sugar in Paradise”
“The Gout Shout”
“That Call from Jail”
“Shut Your Mouth (There’s a game on TV)”
“I Saw Mommy Groping Fake Santa”
“All I Want For Christmas is Your Money”
“All I Want For Christmas is a Comfortable Bed”
“All I Want For Christmas is My Hair”
“Skinny Santa Shake”
“I Asked for Legos (Thanks a Lot, Gramps)”
“How’d You Know I Didn’t Want This?”
“5,000 Calories and Counting”
“Santa’s Clogged Arteries”
“Frosty the Perverted Snowman”
“My Blessed TV”
“Rudolph the Road Kill”
“I Hate You Christmas”
“Christmas Rash”
“Chinese Buffet Christmas”
“Looks Like Dad Lost Another Fight At the Bar on Christmas Eve … Christmas”
In closure, I ran across these lyrics—within a hastily paced version of “12 Days of Christmas” released in 2007 by rock band Relient K—while researching for this column.
“What’s a partridge?
And what’s a pear tree?
I don’t know so please don’t ask me
But I can bet those are terrible gifts to get.”
I honestly didn’t make up the last part. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza and Happy Ramadan seasons to all.
