Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Happy Christmas, everyone! Yes, it is truly the most wonderful time of the year… No school, no work, just a whole bunch of lazing around. And eating – that’s the most important part.
Now, there are plenty of non-Christmas-celebrating readers among us, and to them I offer the generic “Happy Holidays” greeting. Even those of us who do celebrate Christmas have widely differing opinions about what the holiday means. But whether you’re Christian, Jewish, atheist, or a member of your own made-up religious cult, all Americans get to share in something special this time of year: the inundation of Christmas music.
Like it or not, Christmas music is everywhere, blasting in the grocery store, playing endlessly on that one awful easy-listening radio station, and streaming from the mouths of horrifying plastic dancing Santa figurines.
Here’s a little history lesson about Christmas carols that you didn’t ask for:
Pagan carols were first sung in Europe to celebrate the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year, which was Dec. 21 this year). Early Christians took over this pagan celebration and gave the people new songs to sing instead – ones that glorified the birth of Jesus Christ. In 1223, Saint Francis of Assisi introduced carols to the worship service during a Christmas Midnight Mass. Carols began to catch on with the public and popular artists soon began trying to one-up each other by recording their own version of the same songs year after year.
Okay, that last part didn’t start to happen until the 1900s, but Christmas carols have certainly stuck around for a long time. Christmas music can now be broken down into subcategories, such as Traditional (usually the old Christian standards, such as O Come All Ye Faithful), Popular (Mariah Carey and Love Actually… that’s all I will say), and Novelty (witness the horrifyingly creepy tale of marital infidelity known as I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus).
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the music of Christmastime… I find it primarily grating and monotonous. But there are a few gems to be found within the pile of musical waste.
And so, here is my Christmas present to you, dear Art Star readers: an Amy-approved Christmas Playlist! Just click on the song titles to listen!
(You're welcome)
1. Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt -- The cutest, sassiest little Christmas song there ever was, and no one does it better than Eartha.
2. Mad Russian's Christmas (Instrumental) by Trans-Siberian Orchestra -- Sounds like Christmas shopping feels (especially if you waited until this week to go to the mall). Vibrant, pulsing, energetic... now this is the true Christmas spirit.
3. Greensleeves by Vince Guaraldi Trio -- Otherwise known as one of the songs from A Charlie Brown Christmas. You just can't fight the classics.
4. 2000 Miles by The Pretenders -- Here's a Christmas song you don't ever hear on the radio, which is a shame because it's haunting and beautiful, and Chrissie Hynde's vocals are divine.
5. Baby It's Cold Outside by Lady Antebellum -- This is the rare newly-released Christmas song that I actually enjoy. It's excellent; Lady Antebellum's vocals fit this sexy, flirty song perfectly.
6. Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano -- Ok, guilty pleasure time. I can't help it. I just love this song. I think it ties in to the fact that as a child I liked watching Big Bird ice skate to it in the 1978 movie Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.
7. Good King Wenceslas by Loreena McKennitt -- A tale about the spirit of giving in the holiday season ("Ye who now will bless the poor/Shall yourselves find blessing"). This song will make you feel like you're in the Middle Ages again (minus the filth, poverty, and other such undesirable traits).
8. Pat a Pan by Mannheim Steamroller -- This song is keeping in the spirit of ye olde days. Mannheim Steamroller is my go-to band for Christmas music. Their gorgeous instrumental interpretations of Christmas carols is overwhelmingly better than the more popular fare. This song may not be as traditionally "Christmas," but it's one of their best.
9. Merry Christmas, Baby by Charles Brown -- Smooth as buttery caramel toffees and a cup of hot chocolate. This is a song for some Christmastime lovin'.
10. Little Drummer Boy (Peace On Earth) by Bing Crosby & David Bowie -- My absolute #1 favorite Christmas song. Crosby and Bowie are an ingenious pairing. I'll let the video show you why.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Christmas shopping is very overrated.
Half of my December afternoon has been spent with me wandering aimlessly through the aisles of Barnes and Noble, past the shelves of marked-up paperbacks and gift-sets, trying to find just two books. In any other circumstance, this would not be a difficult task: I would just have to grab a couple random bestsellers, slap down some cash, and storm out.
But today was different: I had to buy books for my two little brothers. They were to be presents from me, the older and wiser college sibling that they respect and adore and yada yada yada. They both know how much books have affected my life, how important the pages that I pored over when I was their age have been since the middle school days. I have thrown copies of J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and even post-apocalyptic George Orwell at them so they can, in turn, learn from the same teachers as I did.
Unfortunately, they, like so many of their classmates, have turned to cheap fiction in my college-fueled absence, the Middle-Earth-plagiarized fantasy series which run a predictable plot, with empty “twists”, and stock characters. They are almost impossible to read, with the unpronounceable cities dotting the ever-present-in-fold map and the copied creatures scurrying about the chapters, boring me with the Luke Skywalker/Frodo Baggins/Peter Parker/Eragon Whateverhislastnamewas protagonist who inevitably transforms from a whiney teenager to a war-hardened hero.
So to counteract the base spells and murmurings of their 700 page fantasy tomes, I have picked up the early works of Orson Scott Card, specifically for the eldest of the two. I remember the impact that the final pages of Ender’s Game had on a fourteen-year-old me, as the vast expanses of space were relegated to a small box of war games, leaving a shroud of melancholy hope to the final pages. It’s pretty tough stuff for a young teenager. He’ll just have to deal with it.
For the other brother, it’s more of a challenge. He’s younger and can’t handle the darkness of Ender’s world let alone the dystopian futures of George Orwell and Ray Bradbury. For a long time, I was intent on giving him half of my Calvin and Hobbes collection, some of the most important words I read when I was his age. I was intent on marking up the several soft volumes with important quotes and textbook-like highlighting, detailing his life-plan from the antics of a five-year-old and his stuffed tiger. But that was too much work and, if I’ve learned anything in college, it’s not to try so hard.
So, after two hours strolling through the book store, I admitted defeat; when I was eleven, my reading regiment was relegated to only Star Wars books (a fact that I am unapologetic for; Timothy Zahn is one of the finest writers of his generation.) I was all out of non-Jedi ideas. So I called my mother to see if she had any hidden reconnaissance. And so that’s how I anti-climactically finished my Christmas shopping because, while I was initially adverse to purchasing The Alchemist by Michael Scott (no joke), I found myself wrapped up in its story, after only a few pages, staying at Barnes and Noble for an extra half hour, quietly reading. I guess I shouldn’t have doubted the literary taste of my youngest brother.
After all, he was taught by the best.
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Tis the season to give and I hope you have all your shopping done already (unless of course you, like me, are a fourth quarter player who doesn't care when you buy those gifts as long as they get it around* the 25th).
This is the first year in a while that I've really felt in the holiday spirit. Some years I spent the holidays declaring the death of Christmas. I was mad about celebrating a pagan holiday when Jesus wasn't even born in December**, how commercialism and xmasism*** have rendered the 25th unrecognizable, and how people were obsessed with getting a good gift and gave out of obligation.
One of my main beefs with Christmas is the concept of gift-wrapping. I've always felt like the gift was much more important than the wrapping but there are many people who disagree. Mainly, my mom.
It doesn't matter what I get my mom but I better wrap it. I could get her world peace for Christmas but if I just hand it to her she'd be like, "You couldn't even put it in a bag?"
Who started this custom? Why must so many trees die for such vain purposes?
About.com has an article about gift wrapping and names these five principles as the purposes of gift-wrapping:
- To conceal what it is
- To present the present in a pleasing way
- To enhance anticipation
- To spread the festive atmosphere, whether it is Christmas, a birthday, wedding, etc.
- For traditions sake
In other words: (The CtotheB translation)
- To deceive your loved ones
- To make it pretty if it is a lousy gift/To overachieve and be superfluous if it is a great gift
- To assist your recipient become a glutton for anticipation. Wasn't Christmas Eve enough?
- To saturate your environment with even more commercialism. Presents=Happiness right?
- Cuz that's what we always do!
I for one say NO! I will not wrap my gifts for anyone. If you are offended by this, I will gladly take my gift back.
You may think this is rude of me (perhaps...) but consider this. I think gifts (in order to fulfill the purpose of Christmas) should be given through love and not obligation. The time and effort should be invested in finding the right gift for the right person, not through hours of paper and ribbons trying to make the gift seem good.
I will make an exception if the gift does not come with pre-packaging. Fine, you like suspense (who doesn't) and the look on your recipient's face, I get it. But if your gift comes in a box from Amazon, Victoria's Secret, or Dillard's, no need to be overzealous. They won't know what's in there and they better be appreciative. After all, gifts should be appreciated as tokens of love not obliged offerings.
Substance over style, all day, everyday.
*For our intents and purposes, around can be anywhere from the 20th to the 5th of January. If you're still in school, feel free to amend this rule to from Reading Day until the first day of spring semester/winter term/J term/whatever your accredited institution calls it.
**I like to think he was born in the summer (preferably on the 14th of August) forever ending the conversation about who has the best birthday ever.
***I've never understood people taking Christ out of Christmas. Okay, you're not Christian and you may be an Atheist but you can't just take the name out because it offends you. What does X-mas even mean? Is anyone fooled by this? Further evidence of our collective willingness to live without purpose.
