What's Your Favorite Holiday Tune?

Have you ever listened to the song “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and wondered, Who wrote that, and what were they smoking?
I may sound cynical, but it’s hard to be of good cheer sometimes when you are elbowing your way through a Black Friday sale and someone starts pepper spraying the other shoppers in order to get a hold of an Xbox.
That’s to say nothing of the strain that holidays seem to create within families. Someone’s upset because you didn’t include Aunt Bertha in your Christmas Eve dinner. Last year, she talked everyone’s ear off (a little too loudly) after drinking all your egg nog and told you your turkey was too dry and your dining room décor “needs some work, but has potential.” Your children found all their gifts in the back of your closet. Somebody lays on a guilt trip by reminding you that they always have to eat Christmas dinner at the Waffle House because you can only visit them on Christmas Eve, never on Christmas Day. The whole month of December is a frenzy of parties, cooking, shopping, wrapping, making lists, checking them twice, decorating, going to programs and events . . . it can be really hard to find the joy in it when you’re so busy.

All the while, we pump ourselves full of holiday food and drink. What we need to get through this season is energy. We should all be going on vegetarian diets. Want something to pull you through with the stamina you need? Try broccoli and bananas! Some steamed veggies and legumes will put you right. But no, we sap our own energy with sweets galore, and more. Pass the rum balls; I think I'm losing my buzz.
Now the person who wrote “The Carol of the Bells” really captured the actual tone of the holiday season. That would be terror, of course. It stresses me out just listening to it. My best friend calls it “panic set to music.” It starts like an alarm clock honking in your ear in the dark, cool quiet of morning on a Monday morning. Then it crescendoes early, as if you have remembered that you have an important presentation in front of all your bosses in your 8am meeting, rendering you too nervous to eat breakfast, too shaky to drink coffee. The drums come in with their ominous BOM-BADA BADA BOM-BADA BADA so you know something wicked this way comes. By the time the violins kick in, I’m ready to start crying and screaming. “Nooooooo! Not Christmas!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!”

It maintains a minor key throughout. It’s like theme music from a horror movie. It bears a striking resemblance to the music from the Halloween movies.  My three year old son put it best about “Carol of the Bells.” “Mommy,” he said, “that song sounds mad and scary.” Yes. Yes, it does. At its loudest, it makes me feel desperate. My heart pounds. My fists clench. I feel like I am running away from a T. Rex on a rocky plain. He’s getting closer and closer and I keep falling and bruising my knees on the rocks. Now, you can fill in the blank here; perhaps your T. Rex is your inlaws, your parents, your sister, whomever.
The repetetive pattern of the song, to me, suits the whirlwind and pace of the holiday season. The same four notes are repeated over and over. If I were an imprisoned terrorist, I would be easy to break. All they would have to do is shine a bright light on me and play “Carol of the Bells” loudly. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” I would scream. The song itself sounds like insanity.

Now, if y’all don’t mind, I am going to enjoy a Holiday Spice coffee and some Candy Cane Hershey Kisses while I wrap some gifts. And chase them with a Pepcid AC and a fifth of vodka.