Saturday, December 20, 2014

The Tyranny of Christmas



Oh, don't worry - this isn't a serious post.  I'm not going to write about smug Christians and all that "reason for the season" stuff.  Although, you know, Jesus might be the reason for *your* season, but he's not the reason for *the* season and can't we all just get along anyway?

No, this post aims not to take issue with the religious among us, nor am I going to take this time to decry the infinitely decriable materialism and corporatism that runs rampant through Christmas.  Instead, I am here going to pose a simple question:

Why does Christmas get all the snow songs?

Why is "Let It Snow" a Christmas song?  What about "Winter Wonderland" or "Sleigh Ride" or,  for crying out loud, "Jingle Bells?"   None of these songs have FA to do with Christmas.  They are only about cold.

And I live in a cold place.  I live in a place with tenacious, lingering cold. I live in a place where it is cold forever.

Dammit, I want "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in February!  I need "Winter Wonderland" to get me through a March snow. I should have been singing "Frosty the Snowman" with Laney when we were building a snowman that one April snow.

How did it happen that Christmas managed to co-opt all the cold weather songs?  We might not be able to stop Wal Mart from taking over America.  We might not be able to stop Bill O'Reilly from fomenting theocracy via a wholly made-up War On Christmas, but dammit, we should be able to sing "Let It Snow" whenever it starts fucking snowing.  Right?