The one where I just fucking deal

So I decided to delete the last post. I'm not comfortable being that much of a whiny baby, especially when I know how blessed I am. Plus - I'm not wild about saying anything even remotely negative about Awesome Company, because a) "dooced" and b) they truly are awesome. I am so lucky to have a job that I love, doing work that I feel is meaningful. I work with a group of brilliant, hilarious people. I work for a group of brilliant, hilarious, generous people, and I don't want it to seem like this one struggle that I am having reflects on the company or my experience with them as a whole, because it certainly does not. Regardless of what happens, I will manage to work things out. Thanks for the support and advice, though - I do appreciate it.

Anyway, since I want to wipe the negativity off my front page but I don't have anything else written yet, I am going to re-run something fun - last year's take on Christmas music:



Things I've learned from listening to the All Christmas Music All the Time channel:

- When it comes to the standards, the originals are almost always the best. No on can rock around the Christmas Tree like Brenda Lee, Gene Autry is the only one I want to hear sing Rudolph, and no matter what an asshole he purportedly was, Bing Crosby simply IS White Christmas.

-Pretty much all Christmas music gets me weepy, but Old Toy Trains really does it. Because it makes me think about when the boy was little and he's not anymore, and...waaaaaahhh.

- Occasionally, though, the remakes are better. Willie Nelson made Pretty Paper.

- There are so many, many ways to fuck up Silent Night.

- To wit: Christine Aguilera has a set of pipes, but someone needs to explain to her that "peace" does not have 17 syllables.

- I don't like my Christmas songs to be fucked with very much. Jazz them up, rock them out, whatever, but don't fuck with the basic song in ways that make them un-sing-along-able. And Christmas songs are made for singing along.

- Medleys suck. While we're on the topic of singing along, it sucks when you're just about to rock out the second verse of O Come All Ye Faithful, and suddenly you're in the Little Town of Bethlehem and thinking, "Did I just black out?"

- Hard Candy Christmas is seriously underrated.

- So is Fum, Fum Fum.

- With a few exceptions, the awesomeness of the 80s did not carry over into Christmas Music.

- Even at Christmas, the entire concept of John Tesh makes me want to vomit.

- Suzy snowflake is what second graders sing in music class. It does not belong on the radio. Ever.

- Merry Christmas from the Family sounds more like my family every year.

- No matter how much eggnog* I drink, I still think Bruce Springsteen sucks. Santa Claus is coming to town sounds like something your chain-smoking drunk uncle forgot the words to. (*OK, rum and coke. But in a festive holiday glass.)

- Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy makes me nervous when the girl is listening. Because I'm crazy and I don't have enough ridiculous shit to worry about.

- Synthesizers + Christmas music = Baby Jesus Crying

- Please - no more barking damned dogs (though when I was a kid, they had a version of it with laughing and it was infectious).

- Vince Guaraldi? Genius. So pretty and nostalgic.

- And on the Peanuts topic, Snoopy's Christmas is pretty cool, too.

- And of course all the Grinch music. I mean, anytime one can work "three decker toadstool and sauerkraut sandwich with arsenic sauce" into a song - I'm in.

- You can't go wrong with Dominick the Donkey.

- Embarrassingly enough, I'm still a sucker for the chipmunks.

- Madonna is no Eartha Kitt. Neither are the rest of the skanks who have tried, and failed, to do Santa Baby justice.

- Who the fuck wants a hippopotamus for Christmas? What, are they on crack? Hippos kill motherfuckers! You do not want a hippo!

- Angels among us isn't really a Christmas song, but I love it anyway.

- I really HATE the songs about poor little street urchins who are starving and Jesus disguised as a homeless person and God help me, if I hear Christmas shoes one more time, I'm going to hunt down the person who wrote it and run them down with my sleigh. Then beat them with those fucking shoes. Just in case they meet Jesus tonight.