Considering Christmas

Whatever your faith or faithlessness, you know you can't just ignore Christmas, not in these United States. You can have a Charlie Brown Christmas, or just the brown Christmas in our forecast. It is unlikely that we will have a white Christmas, no matter who is dreaming of it. You and Johnny may have a merry little Christmas. You may be home for Christmas in Connecticut, with or without Barbara Stanwyck. You can pass on the annual holiday junket to Manhattan, block the all-Christmas-music-all-the-time radio station, avoid the gigantic plastic creatures which have invaded the suburbs, and you can shrink your Christmas sweater, but we will all have a holiday on December 25, and it's not just another long weekend.

I think the endurance of Christmas as an American obsession, aside from its obvious retail value, can be explained by our national reverence for optimism. Christmas is all about anticipation. "Do not open until Christmas." Those securely wrapped presents might be concealing a Playstation, (or a prepackaged holiday gift item from Marshall's.) Your mailbox may be overflowing with invitations to a gala round of pre-holiday parties, (or with fifteen more LL Bean catalogs.) Santa may bring you the puppy you asked for; (he surely wouldn't just eat the cookies and run?) It is un-American not to anticipate that prosperity and all good things are just around the corner. Our national aversion to humbuggery, however, can make Christmas a sad season for those of us who no longer believe either in Santa or in endless possibilities.

Ignoring Christmas may not an option, but there is a way to compensate when you've not much to anticipate. Consider conjuring up your own ghost of Christmases Past. Unlike Scrooge, most of us have family footage, with soundtracks, that rival any holiday special for unbridled and very patriotic optimism. But consider also what may lie beneath those sunny super-eights. Remember Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree? Most American families weren't even speaking, let alone rockin', by the time the overpriced underneedled tree was shoved in a corner to hide the bad side, secured with enough wire for a circus tent, and hung with lights that wouldn't stop blinking if they lit up at all. How about I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus? Those grainy photos of the kids in their Christmas pajamas clutching Cabbage Patch dolls never included their bleary-eyed Mommy and Daddy who had been up all night fighting over the interpretation of the dollhouse directions written in Japanese. It seemed there was always A Christmas Party Hop back in the day when everyone in the neighborhood held competitive holiday house parties. There is a reason why, once the kids are gone, that most of the holiday parties to which we are invited are thrown by people who get paid to do so. Work parties may have the warmth of Frosty the Snowman, but they don't entail searching for the perfect hostess gift, preparing standout canapes from complicated recipes, tastefully decorating your own home, or comparing it unfavorably to your neighbor's Winter Wonderland. Feel bad when you hear I'll be Home for Christmas because Dad's gone and Mom's in assisted living? Tell me how much you really miss climbing in the car on Christmas morning while the kids are crying because they have to leave their presents behind so you can drive over the river and through the traffic jam to grandma's house. How about Blue Christmas? At least they got that one right. My most memorable blue Christmas was one I shared with my friend Mary in Boston in 1969. We spent the night before Christmas break in a bar after trudging to Lord and Taylor to cash in the cashmere sweater that she had bought her boyfriend after he presented her with a bottle of Evening in Paris cologne. And even the most optimistic sugar plum fairies among us can't be anticipating yet another performance of The Nutcracker Suite?

We can't ignore Christmas, but maybe we can stop shaking those chains and anticipate a Christmas Future (without that annoying Tiny Tim.) Consider a Christmas without A Christmas Carol, but with David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries (or the Godfather trilogy.) Forget the plum pudding and even the Christmas dinner, and do a morning after brunch instead, so the kids can beat the traffic instead of eating more turkey. Give the family a buy and invite some friends over to hang out, with or without their Christmas sweaters. Finally, here's something we can all (not) anticipate. New Year's Eve is just around the corner!

I'll Take Manhattan

All of it! The lawyers in town for a little conference and a lot of Christmas who thought they may have seen Matt Lauer. The maitre d' who pinned an unsuccessful purse snatcher to the floor while the bartender successfully served cocktails to the onlookers. The NYPD and the guys wearing NYPD hats. The hostel on West End Avenue for $113 a night and the hotel room at the Sheraton for $400, both with the same square footage. Craftbar and Kenny's Broome Street Bar. Old friends Eileen Fisher, Barney, Kate Spade, Max Mara, and Bloody Mary, and new acquaintances Maribelle Chocolate, The American Craftsman, and Rosie O'Grady. The line at TKTS that snaked around the Marriot Marquis like it was Disneyworld, and the line to look in the windows at Saks and Macys. Grey Gardens' Christine Ebersole who was Jackie O's aunt in Act One and her cousin in Act Two, and who was almost Joe Kennedy's wife, but ended up the crazy daughter of a crazier mother. Betsy Bray who saw Renee Zellweger at the Miss Potter premiere, and was on her way to see Chicago. A friend of a friend from Texas and Betsy's nephew from Brooklyn. The tree at Rock Center, and Tom Geoffino's library at New Roc City. ABC Carpet & Home and Alphabet City. Central, Gramercy, Madison and Washington Square parks and a parking ticket for $115. Models in SoHo, out-of-towners in Midtown, and everyone in Times Square. French, Spanish, English English, Chinese, and Brooklynese spoken and no one being heard. Hummer limos for six and subway cars for sixty. Taxis stuck in traffic and people stuffed into pedicabs. A public toilet from Charmin in Times Square, and public displays of affection everywhere. Babies dressed up like band boxes riding in strollers like Cadillacs. Christmas trees for $400 and Christmas lights on every tree. Is it all too much to take? Give Manhattan 72 hours and she'll give you the world!

Making Mixes

This post could also be called "The Wonder of iTunes" but, much as I do think their software is truly wonderful, I refuse to plug the proprietary Apple, in the title at least. I've been madly making mixes as part two of my personal holiday gift giving guide (books coming in first,) so how trite did I feel when I picked up the NY Times Arts & Leisure section last Sunday, only to see a baggy-jeans-clad baby boomer rockin' with earbuds on the front page? The headline was worse--"Uncool but True: the AARP Demographic Leads the Music Market."
The truth is that most of us who came of age in the Sixties love music, and there was a lot of great music produced back in the day. If you never converted your vinyl collection to CDs, you can still buy (or copy from your friends' and the local library) most all of it on iTunes, (except The Beatles, whose entire opus is owned by Michael Jackson!) If books are the gift-giving trifecta (easy to wrap, inexpensive, and readily available) music is the perfecta (easy to wrap, inexpensive, and for those of us with iPods, readily available.) Not that there aren't other ways to make a mix, although it is too bad that Microsoft's most recent would-be iPod-killer, the Zune, also depends on a proprietary music source, and last.fm, a great music site (Thank you Deb Zulick) allegedly has a way to download, (scrobbling?) which I have yet to understand. You could also just buy CDs, also easy to wrap, inexpensive, and readily available, but there is nothing better (or cheaper) than a good mix made just for you, or for someone else whose musical taste you appreciate.
My friend Dave's mix, now in a four-CD boxed set produced locally by yours truly, is the best. If you were a sweaty palmed sixteen year-old the last time you heard Roy Orbison crying, this one's for you. The old standards are all here--Dylan, the Byrds, Tom Petty, The Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Dire Straits, Jackson Browne, and Dave's favorite, Cheap Trick. Remember The Raspberries' one hit wonder, "Go All the Way", "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd, or Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper"? Add a little Blondie, Annie Lennox, Stevie Nicks, 10,000 Maniacs, and even Elvis, and you'll hear life pulsing through those ear buds, or better yet, from your car stereo, because this is great driving music.
Being a fan of Top Forties Pop from almost any era, I created my own boxed set, "Some Songs Since", and there have been some good ones. Most of my list, unlike Dave's, is pure Emo, but I know what I like--old and new Pop from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews Band, Oasis, Goo Goo Dolls, The Killers, Keane, Three Doors Down, Nickelback, Hoobastank, the Fray, and Liz Phair. Who can resist Sting's "Fields of Gold", "One", sung by Mary J. Blige with U2, the Smashing Pumpkin's "1979," and, on the top of any chick's list, Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"? I also include, from the twenty-first century, Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars", Howie Day's "Collide", Anna Nalick's "Breathe", and Five for Fighting's "The Riddle". So many bands, so little space on those CD-Rs! The Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous" is the music to get you ready to go out, and Foo Fighters' "Best of You" and Alicia Keye's "If I Ain't Got You" will both nourish broken hearts. You won't find any Country, except for the Dixie Chicks, on my list, (Listen to Imus for that!) nor Rod Stewart, except for the obligatory "Maggie May", and the only rap is the really witty "Gold Digger" by Kanye West and "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado.
They are all there on iTunes for $.99 a click, or better yet, check out the CD's from your local library and download the whole CD to get the songs you want for free, (or buy the songs from your own downloading source of choice, legal or not.) Now mix it up and burn CDs for those friends and family who haven't read the books you bought them last year.