Christmas Pop Culture Confessions

#1—

“Jingle Bell Rock routinely turns up on lists of the worst Christmas songs ever. I actually like it. I know it’s beyond kitschy, almost Pat Boone-ish, and certainly a shameless attempt to cash in on the emergence of Rock and Roll in the 50s. I don’t like it because it’s exemplary musical art, and I’m not totally sure why I like it at all. The simplicity and sentimentality may be its appeal. It does conjure visions of an easygoing, uncontrived holiday gathering, set in some simpler mid-century time frame. It inflicts a nostalgia for something I never knew. Or maybe for a celebration more laid back than my family’s were.


#2—

I find It’s a Wonderful Life extremely depressing. When George Bailey begins the downward spiral that eventually leads him to the bridge, I’m dragged down with him and I don’t come back up after Clarence the angel arrives to redeem George. I’ll leave about ¾ through the movie convinced that It’s a Crappy Life.

Although if I do watch to the end, the scene where Clarence shows George that if he had never been born his town would have been full of seedy dives and dance halls, I start wondering whether someone else's birth has prevented my neighborhood from being a cluster of bookshops and brewpubs. Or from being at the center of a thousand acre forest park.


Speaking of Christmas movies, I've noticed that the newer film versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol have fewer references to both Christianity and alcohol that their predecessors.

#3--

I like Bing Crosby's Christmas albums. Though not the film White Christmas

#4--

I didn't send Christmas cards this year. Just didn't have time once I finished my end-of-semester work. Of course, I could have skipped that hunting trip last Monday.

No, I just didn't have time.

#5--

I believed in Santa Clause until I was about ten. Even the ubiquity of mall Santas didn't give me any doubts. I knew the real one was at the mall where my dad worked. As far as his getting around the world in one night, I figured that the different time zones made that possible.


Savor your Christmas farragoes and fantasies. They are one indulgence you won't need to spend Janurary working off.