The Worst Christmas Song in the History of the World

If anyone was surprised or a little put-off by my "I hate Christmas" rant a few days ago, I apologize. I now know why I was in a particularly bah-humbug mood; I was coming down with the atrocious infection my daughter had. I have felt pretty physically rotten the last 36 hours, and when I feel sick, I get grumpy and blue. Being sick around Christmas is even worse; I get bogged down in the stress of getting behind on shopping, decorating, wrapping, etc. This is the second year in a row I've been out for the count the week after Thanksgiving, and it's making me view the holidays in a bad light. Perhaps things will get better once I get better.

But you know what I will always have ill will towards? The worst, most exploitative Christmas pop song ever. The song that makes me holler out, "Nooooo!" and change channels immediately. Any guesses?

Before I give it up, let's review. I did a post a while ago about those songs that you hate so much they immediately make you change the channel. I am shocked that I left this one off; I think this cheerful little holiday ditty might be my least favorite song in the history of ever. Nothing makes me hit a preset button faster than the opening notes of this song. Not even Nickelback.

It is..."The Christmas Shoes"! Oh, yeah. We all know this one, right? It gets heavy airplay on those radio stations that start playing non-stop Christmas "hits" in November, and if you listen to those stations longer than 30 minutes a day, you are guaranteed to hear the tinkly, saccharine opening of the "Christmas Shoes" at least once.

Some of you may be thinking, "Awww! I love that song! It's so sad!" Yes, it is. Which is why I hate hearing it at Christmas.

And not just sad. It brings out every weepy lyrical device ever conjured for the sole effect of making people cry into their Christmas stockings. Its purpose is to say, "Hey! I know this is supposed to be a joyous time of celebration, hope, and light, but let's all stop for a minute to think about how tragic the holidays can be! Everyone just seems too happy this year!"

In one short song, here's what you get:

You've got the old tear-jerker standby of the dying young mother (and though not stated, the lingering nature of her death sounds like cancer). It's like listening to Debra Winger die in Terms of Endearment. But wait! There's more! Then you've got the impoverished, ill-kempt child running around without adult supervision on Christmas Eve. Like Tiny Tim, said poor kid is heart-wrenching in his concern for others. He's saved all his change to buy his dying mom a pair of Christmas slippers. And that's not all! You've got impatient, selfish shoppers and sales people who get annoyed that the kid doesn't have enough money and who treat him badly. As if that's not enough, then you've got the religious overtones. The kid isn't just getting the mom a pair of shoes; he's buying the shoes she'll wear at her imminent death and that she will meet Jesus in. And just in case you haven't caused a car accident yet by crying while this is playing in your car, they make sure that one chorus is sung by a children's choir so you can literally hear a child's grief coming through your speakers. Gah! The cherry on top of this big old mound of profound hopelessness is that the narrator saves the day (as though it can possibly be saved at this point) by digging into his own pockets to buy the shoes. Love and selflessness prevail, right? It's hopeful at the end, isn't it?

Wrong! Think about it. That poor kid still has to go home and face the dying mom. Yes, some stranger tossed a few bucks his way, but is the stranger also walking him home? Comforting him? Contacting social services to try to get the family some financial help (and to help make sure the kid isn't always running loose on the streets?) It just ends with the narrator feeling all heart-warmed about this big, generous thing he's done. He's really congratulating himself on his own Christmas spirit; he says,

I knew I caught a glimpse of heaven's love as he thanked me and ran out.
I know that God had sent that little boy to remind me
What Christmas is all about.

So, God sent a pitiful, grieving little kid your way with the sole purpose of redeeming your misguided idea of Christmas? Really? Is it all about you?

Of course, some martketing genius turned this 4-minute song into a 2-hour TV movie several years ago and made the narrator more involved and tried to make the final picture a little more hopeful and complete. And they even came out with a sequel. Because if there's one thing we need more of at the holidays, it's stories about kids who have lost their moms.

Maybe I'm so sensitive to this song because of my own backstory. Maybe it hits a little too close to home; as a cancer survivor, one of my worst fears is that I will die a horrible, prolonged cancer death while Ainsley is still young, leaving her lonely and scarred. I don't want to think about my little girl searching the couch cushions for spare change some future Christmas Eve, catching a bus to Macy's to get me a pair of shoes to die in. There are so many things wrong with that scenario. It doesn't exactly put me in the Christmas spirit to listen to this put to song for the sole effect of making people cry at Christmas.

Do I think everything about the holidays should be cheerful? No! Some of my favorite carols (the Coventry Carol, for instance) explore the sadder, more reverent side of the birth narrative. And I love me a good Hallmark commercial. The difference with those types of Christmas weepies is that they don't try so hard to be sad just for the sake of being sad; they just tell good stories. Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy inside after watching a Christmas Hallmark commercial? Don't they just reinforce that holidays ar all about love and family, even if they do make you cry a little? Now imagine if someone took the plot of The Christmas Shoes and made that a greeting card commercial. Do you still feel warm and fuzzy, or are you more in a mood to drink your sorrows away for the remainder of the season?

For me, it's the latter. And that's why I hate this song.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Is there a redeeming quality there that I'm missing? Is there a worse holiday song?

New Posts Below!

I finished everything I started during the long holiday weekend. Check out the new posts below.

Catching Up...

Wow. It's been almost a week. Sorry I haven't graced you with my presence over the holiday of thanks. I've had a lot going on. Like:

1. Cooking sides and desserts that barely got touched at both of the Thanksgiving family deals we attend;

2. Playing Guitar Hero III;

3. Putting up Christmas decorations;

4. Avoiding major shopping centers and doing all my "Black Friday" gift shopping online while sitting in my pajamas;

5. Nursing a 5-year-old with an ear infection.

The last one was the least fun. That kid always gets sick after a major holiday. It's as reliable as most people's New Year's Day hangovers.

So, to get caught up, I am going to do a couple of little posts tonight and tomorrow. I am going ot try to cheat the posting times so that they follow this post.

Talk to ya soon!

I'm a Mean One...Cranky Grinch...

It didn't take long for the Christmas grumpies to set in.

It doesn't take much for me, really. Here's a dirty little secret...now lean in close...closer...I HATE CHRISTMAS! There. I said it. Call me Grinch. Call me Scrooge. But don't dare say you love every single teeny tiny minute of the holidays. Do you honestly like standing in line in an overheated department store behind a woman who wants to argue that the Tommy Hilfiger jeans she's holding came off of the "$9.99 or less" rack to buy a sweater for a picky relative who will either store it in a closet with the tags still on to never ever wear or to exchange the day after Christmas? Do you really? Do you enjoy spending every free evening surrounded by wrapping paper and tape and tags and bows, fighting off the family cat, who likes to get in the middle of every expanse of wrapping paper as soon as you spread it out, trying to wrap a bathrobe that you miraculously squeezed into a shirt box and therefore is trying to explode out of the box like a can of snakes? Is that fun for you? Huh? Liar!

OK, so I know there are some people who truly love every minute of Christmas and the smile on the kids' faces and the family feasts and the drunken office parties and all that. I am friends with some of these people. Good for them! Just don't give me one of those disbelieving, wide-eyed, you-mean-to-tell-me-you-don't-like-Christmas looks when I confess I'm not one of them. It doesn't make me a bad person. It does make me a woman.

Men have it easy when it comes to the holidays. The little woman scrambles to get the vast majority of the gifts, do the wrapping, deck the halls, keep the master schedule of Santa breakfasts, parties, and church events, and tops it all off by cooking, baking, and cleaning for the big family holiday party. Then the men wonder why, come December 26, we just want to lay on the couch and drink leftover eggnog with a little extra "nog" thrown in for good measure. It's exhausting, and since I am a perfectionist who needs to feel inspired by each gift I buy, emotionally draining. I take it too personally when someone acts less-than-thrilled by a gift. I almost break down when Santa's cookies get a little too crisp, or the roast beast ends up dry. I don't handle stress well; when it's December 23rd, and there are still unwrapped presents, and stocking stuffers to buy, and that one last gift to get for that person I don't know very well in the in-laws' family name draw, I can't take it. I can't enjoy the pretty lights, the TV specials, or playing Santa. I'm too bogged down in the details.

I would like it so much better if the whole gift thing was thrown out of the equation for anyone over the age of 18. I like buying for kids, and I love Ainsley's face on Christmas morning. That, to me, is what it's all about. Imagine, if you will, a Christmas where it's all about the kids, and where adults spend their money on the less fortunate or on themselves. We wouldn't max out the credit cards. We could afford to do more for the homeless and the impoverished. Heck, if you want to think about it selfishly, you wouldn't need to ask Santa for a new iPod; you could afford to buy one yourself. Think about how much more enjoyable the holidays would be if our time and energy wasn't spent in the stores. Instead of spending hours buying gifts for your mom, you could spend hours with your mom. Isn't that what the holidays are really supposed to be about? Did all you Christmas-lovers pay any attention to Charlie Brown? Wasn't his whole point that commercialism sucks all the joy and meaning out of the holiday? Everyone talks about the Charlie Brown tree; I want a Charlie Brown Christmas, stripped of all the excess, back to the basics of joy and light and time spent with family. I want to start a minimalist movement this Christmas. Let's take back the fun of the holiday and leave the stress behind! Who's with me?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Oh, alright then. Commercialism wins. I'll see you at the mall.

You Can Always Go...Downtown!

It's amazing how poorly we know our own cities and towns.



I've lived in northern Kentucky for, oh, 3 decades now, but downtown Cincinnati, a mere 20 minutes away, is almost as unexplored to me as, say, New York City. That's sad, really.



In our search for a family holiday tradition that we can realistically follow every year, we ventured downtown the day after Thanksgiving. And we had a terrific time. We rode a bus from a nearby Park and Ride, took in the Duke Energy train exhibit, ate lunch at Benihana (Ainsley thinks it's so cool that they make her fried rice on the table, and she picked almost every bite of hibachi shrimp from our plates), watched the ice skaters at Fountain Square, and took a horse-drawn carriage ride. It's the most fun I've ever had on Black Friday. There were no crowds, everything felt festive and laid-back, and every dime we spent we spent on ourselves. Not a bad way to kick off the stress of the rest of the holidays.

I learned a lot during the carriage ride. When I do visit downtown Cincinnati, I always have a specific destination in mind and never wander much further than the fountain or the Aronoff Center. Our horseman strolled us into the oldest part of the city, where Taft built his mansion and where classy granite and brick German architecture gets dwarfed by the glass and metal of the contemporary office towers. I know so little of the history of my own surroundings; it was nice to sip coffee and hot chocolate, cover up with a blanket, and get a history lesson accompanied by the clip-clop of horseshoes on asphalt.

All in all, a pleasant afternoon, and the start of what I hope will be a Cranky holiday tradition.

Thankful

A few things I am thankful for this year:



1. After spending last Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter in the hospital, my mother-in-law finally got to spend a healthy holiday with her family (and she was so healthy that she cooked almost everything herself!);

2. Heroes stopped sucking;


3. Another year cancer-free;


4. Ainsley's teacher and her little friends at school;


5. Hershey's Cacao Reserves bars;


6. Being able to find a Wii before Christmas;

7. Antibiotics;

8. Unibroue beer;

9. Beer in general;

10. Our jobs, without which numbers 4 through 10 would not be possible;

11. Our families, and our friends, who are like family.

12. My readers. All 6 of you.

Happy Holidays, y'all!

Over the Top

Macaroni and cheese: Good!

Cincinnati chili: Good!

Mound of finely shredded cheddar cheese: Good!

Gold Star Chili's new Chili Mac and Cheese? Umm...ah....er....uhhh....(sound of retching)...not good.

Check out that commercial for it in the link above. Does that look remotely appetizing to you? Anyone? Anyone? Is it just me? Or is that really one of the most disturbing restaurant creations ever?

I mean, c'mon. I like a 3-Way every now and again (the chili version, of course.) But I feel guilty about it. I'm pretty sure it has no redeeming nutritional value. Several years ago the Cincinnati papers did an expose on the extrememly high (even for fast food) calories and fat grams in 3-Ways and cheese coneys and it was enough to make your liver heave. I can only imagine taking out the plain spaghetti noodles, the only part of a 3-Way not loaded with artery-cloggers, and replacing it with macaroni and cheese. It may taste good, (may), but I can't imagine it would be so earth-shattering as to be worth the thousand or so calories.

The Gold Star people have grossed me out before. Once a year they bring out the chili burger. Now, I know many restaurants serve a chili burger. That's fine. But like the Chili Mac and Cheese, they take it above and beyond. As you would expect, it's a cheeseburger (1/4 lb. of beef!) with some of their Cincinnati-style chili on top. I'm with it at that point. But what makes theirs truly special is that an ordinary bun isn't good enough. They serve their chili burger on garlic bread. Yes! It's the burger for the guy who feels his arteries are simply too clean, and who wants to make sure his co-workers get to put their CPR and portable defibrilator training to good use. I can just picture the development meeting for this item:

"Gentlemen, we need a burger!"
"Yes! Absolutely!"
"And since we're a chili chain, we should put our chili on that burger!"
"But of course!"
"And make sure we put a slice of American cheese on that beef patty."
"Naturally. It wouldn't be a cheeseburger without that!"
"And then some of our finely shredded cheddar on top of the chili."
"Why not? It makes our 3-Ways so good!"
"But it's missing something. It needs some pizzazz. What kind of bread do the people like?"
"I like garlic bread, sir."
"That's it! We'll serve it all between two slices of Texas toast soaked in garlic butter! Genius! Now, what does everybody want to order today for lunch?"
"Salad!"

Perhaps I am being too harsh. It could be the greatest junk food creation since, well, ever. But I just don't know if I could bring myself to try it. I'm not a health food freak, by any stretch of the imagination (she says, as she pops open a Coke and nibbles on a Cacao Reserve bar). But I have never understood how anyone over the age of 25 can, without guilt, go into a Wendy's and get the triple cheeseburger with extra mayo, Biggie fries, Biggie Coke, and a 99-cent Frosty. If the nausea didn't kill me, my own guilt and calorie-counting would make me want to jump off a cliff after such an indulgence. I've seen Supersize Me and Fast Food Nation. I don't need to live it.

But we all do it, don't we? We've all done the over-the-top food thing. It's part of being American, after all. But I feel I have to draw the line somewhere. And I am drawing that line at Gold Star's Chili Mac and Cheese.

As we approach the holiday of indulgence this Thursday, let us all think about times that we should have drawn the line with food but didn't. What's the most outrageously bad-for-you thing you've ever eaten? And would you try macaroni and cheese smothered in Cincy chili smothered in cheddar cheese?

To show you I'm not a granola-eating health freak, let me get the ball rolling. Once, when I was much younger and thought that both my skinny genes and my skinny jeans would last forever, I pulled into a McDonald's to take advantage of their limited-time-only "2 for $2" double cheeseburger deal. Midway through the second burger, I realized they had given me 2 triple cheeseburgers (on sale for 2 for $3!) instead. I still finished it. And felt like crap for 2 days. And swore I would never eat that much fried beef in one sitting again, but justified it to my fiance later by saying, "But I didn't get any fries!"