Already Overplayed

There is a burgeoning tradition here in the Sleepy household to listen to Christmas music all day while the decorations are being festooned hither, thither and yon. And it came about that on Friday, Tim hauled the various tubs and boxes down from the attic and tuned the satellite Sirius to their "Holly" holiday channel. As we began to sort through the various and sundries, Tim heard the first "waa-waa-waaas" of Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime and dove across the room for the remote so he could change the channel without having to listen to what he considers one of the biggest travesties of Christmas music to date. His beef, it seems, is with the cheesy 80's keyboard effect. I contend that since it's from the 80s, you can't be biased against said cheese, since at the time, it was tres cool. (I actually happen to like the song...and might have sung it, loudly, several times this weekend just so that he couldn't completely escape.)

Shortly thereafter we both raced for the remote on hearing the opening strains of Do They Know It's Christmas. This song irritates me. First off, the song was intended to raise money for Ethoipia. According to Wikipedia (and ok sure, maybe not the best source out there, but it's all I feel inclined to look up), 61% of the population is Christian. So yes, 61% of them actually do know it's Christmas. 32% are Muslim. They probably know it's Christmas but they don't actually care. As for the rest of Africa, well, it's probably a similar type of mix, though leaning more heavily on the Muslim or "traditional religion" numbers. Point being, it's a stupid question. Then there's the whole "won't be snow in Africa this Christmas", well, Mt. Kilimanjaro has snow year-round, so that's out. But other than that, given that the majority of Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas falls pretty much at the start of summer...so you wouldn't expect snow in the first place. And ok, sure, I know that my whole irritation with the song is missing the point of the song, but seriously...you'd think they could've come up with questions to ask that weren't simply annoying if you happen to investigate the answers (rather than leaving them rhetorical).

And then there's Elvis. Seriously people, the man was obsessed with blue. First he whined about his Blue Suede Shoes and now he's whining about a Blue Christmas. I would like to just take Elvis and Picasso (both dead, BTW) and put them in a blue box and leave them there.

So, in self defense, we dug out the Christmas CDs and popped them in the changer. Our newest addition is the Celtic Woman Christmas CD - and it comes highly recommended. But, if you're already fed up with the repetition of the same old holiday scholck, may I suggest that the remedy might just be something a little bit lighter?