plash

My pastor in college once gave a sermon lamenting the slow downfall of Thanksgiving, a holiday with limited commercial appeal. Every year Thanksgiving gets squeezed a bit further as the demands of the “real” holiday season kick in ever earlier. I find myself getting a bit defensive on Thanksgiving’s behalf: it doesn’t have a lot to offer in terms of cool stuff or shelf space, but it’s something more than just turkey and football. And it is definitely something more than a date on the calendar after which we can stop pretending and finally get our Christmas on, as if we hadn’t been doing that since early October.

In fairness, the early Christmas season does have its benefits. (Mainly, eggnog: the day that grocery stores start stocking the stuff should be a holiday in itself.) And ’round these parts, you can get nonstop Christmas music starting November 1. I’ve always found Christmas music on the radio to be a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, there are the annual classics, like Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” (I’d also rank “The Chipmunk Song” right up there). But there are also the new versions we’re forced to suffer through each year, as each flavor of the moment musician warbles his or her their way through a classic – or even worse, a new – tune.

And then there are the tunes which are played year after year, despite being defiantly stupid. My go-to example: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”. It’s a catchy tune, to be sure, but with such vapid lyrics that it’s hard to reconcile this Lennon with the one who wrote ‘Imagine”. (He’s also, as Charlie points out, the man who wrote the sheer poetry that is “everybody’s got something to hide, except for me and my monkey”.)

On the other hand, this song has given a precious gift to humanity: I present to you “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, as performed by the Three Tenors. This was recorded in December 1999 at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, featuring the Vienna Symphony and the Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen Children’s Choir. And, of course, the three tenors themselves: Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti looking uncomfortably awkward as they bust out lyrics like “And so this is Christmas, I hope you had fun” and “Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear”.

Now this is something I will treasure every Christmas!

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