It Just Bugs Me: Holiday Edition
Whether you like it or not, you hear a lot of Christmas songs these days. And by "these days" I mean basically the last two months of the year. And sometimes, when hearing these songs that I've heard dozens if not hundreds of times in my life, I find myself listening to the words. And then thinking about them. (This is generally regarded as a mistake, but what can you do?) And when that happens, I sometimes notice things that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense on reflection.
Now, there are probably perfectly good explanations for most of these things. It could be that words have changed meanings over the years, or that they're referencing some old holiday custom that we don't know about any more, or any number of other things that I could no doubt learn about with a minimum of research, but I don't care. I'd rather just list a bunch of them in a presumably humorous or at least light-hearted manner and then move on.
In no particular order:
The Twelve Days of Christmas. Okay, so first of all, who is this "true love" who sends you a present every day and also sends another one of everything he sent the day before? Are you dating Fibonacci? And really, other than the rings and maybe, maybe some of the poultry, I'm not sure how well these things work as gifts. I mean, I guess he could hire the musicians and the maids and send them over (and is he sending the same ones every day, or are the ones from the previous days still hanging around?), but how do you give Lords and Ladies as presents? I mean, aren't they, like, nobility? Even if you're the king and not just a very generous boyfriend with borderline OCD, they don't belong to you in the sense that you can give them to somebody for Christmas, do they? And while we're on the subject, I think that having a bunch of lords just a-leaping willy-nilly all over your house would get old pretty quick. They're probably scaring the turtle doves.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. This starts off on a bad foot with the title. Really, is smarmy condescension the tone we want in our holiday songs? I think not. But what gets this one onto the list is the line "Through the years we all will be together, if the Fates allow." The Fates? Really? How do they enter into the picture? When did they start exerting influence over who spends Christmas where? And was this before or after the Rankin-Bass special where Santa Claus gets his magic powers from pagan forest spirits?
The Christmas Song. And again, I have to take a passing shot at the title. Don't give yourself airs. There are plenty of Christmas songs already, so yours can't be the Christmas song. Go come up with a real title and get back to us. This is also the song where the singer apparently hates people who are 93 or older, but what I'm on about right now is the the line before that: "Every mother's child is going to spy, to see if reindeer really know how to fly." Now, I've seen reindeer (or as my people call them, caribou) and it never occured to me that their earthbound nature was attributable to a lack of knowledge. Apparently it's not their relatively bulky shape and distinct lack of wings or any wing-like structures that prevents small ungulates from taking to the air, it's just ignorance. (Speaking of ignorance, I'm not 100% sure that reindeer are ungulates, but it's a funny word so I'm deliberately not looking it up just in case they aren't.)
Now, there are probably perfectly good explanations for most of these things. It could be that words have changed meanings over the years, or that they're referencing some old holiday custom that we don't know about any more, or any number of other things that I could no doubt learn about with a minimum of research, but I don't care. I'd rather just list a bunch of them in a presumably humorous or at least light-hearted manner and then move on.
In no particular order:
The Twelve Days of Christmas. Okay, so first of all, who is this "true love" who sends you a present every day and also sends another one of everything he sent the day before? Are you dating Fibonacci? And really, other than the rings and maybe, maybe some of the poultry, I'm not sure how well these things work as gifts. I mean, I guess he could hire the musicians and the maids and send them over (and is he sending the same ones every day, or are the ones from the previous days still hanging around?), but how do you give Lords and Ladies as presents? I mean, aren't they, like, nobility? Even if you're the king and not just a very generous boyfriend with borderline OCD, they don't belong to you in the sense that you can give them to somebody for Christmas, do they? And while we're on the subject, I think that having a bunch of lords just a-leaping willy-nilly all over your house would get old pretty quick. They're probably scaring the turtle doves.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. This starts off on a bad foot with the title. Really, is smarmy condescension the tone we want in our holiday songs? I think not. But what gets this one onto the list is the line "Through the years we all will be together, if the Fates allow." The Fates? Really? How do they enter into the picture? When did they start exerting influence over who spends Christmas where? And was this before or after the Rankin-Bass special where Santa Claus gets his magic powers from pagan forest spirits?
The Christmas Song. And again, I have to take a passing shot at the title. Don't give yourself airs. There are plenty of Christmas songs already, so yours can't be the Christmas song. Go come up with a real title and get back to us. This is also the song where the singer apparently hates people who are 93 or older, but what I'm on about right now is the the line before that: "Every mother's child is going to spy, to see if reindeer really know how to fly." Now, I've seen reindeer (or as my people call them, caribou) and it never occured to me that their earthbound nature was attributable to a lack of knowledge. Apparently it's not their relatively bulky shape and distinct lack of wings or any wing-like structures that prevents small ungulates from taking to the air, it's just ignorance. (Speaking of ignorance, I'm not 100% sure that reindeer are ungulates, but it's a funny word so I'm deliberately not looking it up just in case they aren't.)