I love Christmas, but . . .

[Boxlicker101]

The good doctor suggested, among other things:

I've got a few ideas for Christams songs I'm working on:

--Santa Must Have Been Drunk (When He Brought You to Me)

That sounds like a C & W song that Eddie Rabbitt or somebody else might record.

 

[SlickTony]

As a southerner, I am totally tired of the way Yankees and northern Europeans managed to co-opt Christmas.

Since when did the original time of Jesus' birth have anything to do with snow and jingle bells and holly?

I lived in the Middle East for a while, and while I'm not up to looking it up on a globe at this time, I would venture to say that the climate in the desert country I lived in was not unlike that of Bethlehem. In the early winter or late fall, it starts raining for the first time since May and people rush like mad to plant flowers and vegetables. Add to this, there is some evidence to suggest that Jesus was born in the springtime, because the time that shepherds are most likely to be out with their flocks by night is lambing time. No--Jesus was probably not born "in the bleak midwinter."

Yet, no matter where you are, even if you came up in Gulf Coast Texas and are living in Florida like me, you're inundated with images of the damn snow and jingle bells! Since I've been alive it has snowed in Houston approximately twice--once in 1960 and once in 1973. And have you ever noticed how once Christmas is over, nobody sings "Jingle Bell Rock," "Jingle Bells," or "Let it Snow"? And yet people in the cold countries have at least two more months, possibly three or more, of winter weather to put up with. Based on what experience I've had of living in snow country, I'd guess that the songs about snowmen and sleighrides are replaced with arguments about whose turn it is to shovel snow and put sand on the driveway and who forgot to go out and warm up the car (or who needs to dig it out).

I enjoy the winter we do get up to about--oh, Twelfth Night. Or Mardi Gras. Or Valentine's Day. Whichever comes first. Then I'm counting the days until spring.

Actually, I know how this hijacking of what was probably a temperate-climate event took place--the northern Europeans had converted to Christianity but they still wanted their Yuletide. They needed it. After all, they had to have something to make winter bearable. They had to have something to help them through a time when the days would be so short that they would find themselves working from dark to dark. I don't like coming out of work to find the sun mostly down, myself.

And that reminds me of another beef I have, that Christmas and New Years are so close together. You have a brand-spankin' new year and. as I have remarked, several weeks, if not months, of last year's weather to get through until spring. In Iran the New Year begins on the first day of spring, and it's one of their customs that I totally approve of.

This state of affairs has been going on for at least a thousand years, so I don't suppose there is anything that can be done about it. But we can enjoy all the accounts of southern Christmases; the alternative songs about the Cajun Santa and his alligator-drawn pirogue; the Christmas cards with Santa sunning himself on a Florida beach and Christmas lights string on palm trees. And I do.

I'd have more to say, except that my son is fixing to go to a winter retreat this weekend and I need to go see if he has enough winter clothes to pack. I'm glad you seem to be able to edit posts in this place indefinitely.