My Xmas Wishlist

(I edited the Christmas Specials list to include Trading Places with Eddie Murphy- not sure how I forgot about that one! I am amiss!)

But I’ve finished my finals- finished the last one 4 hours and twenty minutes ago as of right now and I’m celebrating with a blog post and not lighting up because of who I am as a person even though I’m going home (!) and marijuana is legal there now (!).

It’s time to enjoy my respite from not-numbing-enough anxiety and round the clock studying to bathe in the golden and bedecked rampant consumerism that is one of my favorite things about Christmas.  I really liked gifts. Both getting and giving.  If I don’t think too much about the whole confusion that is the nature of the reciprocity social contract. But it’s kind of okay on my side because I tend to be the kind of person who, no matter what, will get the best present for someone in any given circumstance. It’s okay to hate me.

Christmas Music: TV Specials

Here’s the fun one where I get to seem like an ignoramus.  Yes, I do know that these songs are not original to the tv specials. Some of them are. Those are the worse ones.  But there’s a whole host of snappy songs that I was introduced to via Christmas specials watched at home or on ABC’s 25 Days of Christmas (is that still a thing?) and those are maybe, for me, the closest to my young child heart because they’re the ones that young child me loved.

Even if as I got a little older I realized that ‘If you sit on my lap today, a kiss a toy is the price you pay’ is not an okay lyric under any circumstances. But when you’re little you’re just like, yeah okay, all smiles here! Creepy ginger man from the woods in strange clothes has toys!

And I’m seriously debating having this be the closing entry in this series. I don’t really like more popular/current Christmas songs (like WHAM’s Last Christmas, etc.) but there are a few that I enjoy… I don’t know? Maybe I’ll tack them on at the end here.

Christmas Music: Crooners

I may have insinuated that Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole were on my naughty list in the last post (ahhh, the seasonal jokes, so terrible), but I actually enjoy them in the right moment and the right frame of mind.  Also, if you haven’t watched David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet then you have not truly lived.  And there are modern crooners too (looking at you, Buble).  Those people whose suave sentimentality is really annoying until you’re in the mood for it and then ah, my heart, so earnest, so pure!

So are we ready? Hold onto your hearts 😛

Christmas Music: Traditional

I’m a big fan of Christmas/holiday music and my favorite category has to be more traditional choral stuff. You know, where you take little boys and make them sing together and then chuck them out when their voices start cracking so that they can begin bootcamp for King’s College Choir.

So actually very traditional and staid, rather than good old family tunes like Santa Claus is Coming to Town or whatever Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole you want to wedge in here.  Not that those aren’t good. I love those too. But maybe a little less? Anyway, a brief rundown (because we’re still in finals period!) of my favorite somewhat antediluvian Christmas songs.

Christmas Specials

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Well, depending on how you feel about it, maybe, maybe not.  For me, it will be once I’m done with this semester and headed home.  And then I can double down on the advent calendar, gift wrapping, holiday preparation whole nine yards.

Because college has seriously cramped my festive style.  (I miss the 25 days of Christmas on ABC (Is it ABC?)).  All they do here at university is get drunk at holiday parties. And the guys next door (not the ones we share a bathroom with, the other ones) blast Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You while I try to do my thesis. Bah Humbug.
Finals aren’t even over until the 21st.

I’ve done a bit better this year.  I cornered a children’s choir and made them sing Go Tell it on the Mountain, which is one of my favorite carols. Okay, actually I ran into them and they were going to sing anyway. But it was such an unexpected coup and I feel so deviously satisfied.
I also got to watch a single Christmas movie one of the days after Thanksgiving.  Still far behind my young self, but doing better than some recent years.
And a horse-drawn carriage giving free rides stopped in front of me today so I hopped on and they took me around the block, which was lovely.  The horses were named Ben and Luke, a Clydesdale and Percheron x Thoroughbred. And I’m very satisfied because I guessed their breeds correctly.  My horse knowledge hasn’t all wasted away.
And I think the performance of the Messiah will be happening soon at the chapel.  That’s always excellent. Last year I went and worked on my fifty page lab report. Woo!

So here’s a list of the cheesy Christmas specials that I’m missing (for now).  They’re kind of in the order of what I love most, which mostly reflects what I liked as a child rather than what is ‘good’. And I’m omitting movies I haven’t seen (and movies I couldn’t make it through- like Arthur Christmas).