Let the XMS MUZK BGIN

Larry and I have a rule: no Christmas music before Thanksgiving. For one, it keeps the music special. The season has been hijacked as it is. Or as my mother used to say, when she could put two words together, "When you see the Christmas decorations go up, you know Halloween can't be far behind." The other thing is: it's non stop yule music for Larry, once the pilgrim shoes come off.

I learned this the hard way our first Thanksgiving together. More precisely, on the 18 hour drive to Colorado and back. Larr couldn't wait to play All Christmas, All the Time. My brother Jim was in the car and he complained. Little did he realize we put on the music to shut his yapper. Put my brother in a room and if there is dead air space he will fill it with fun facts about the well-tempered klavier, oboe reed making, the terminal velocity of rocks and everything you would ever want to know about wine. Every kind of wine. He knows I'm in AA 9 1/2 years now and he still finds wine interesting to talk about around me. For hours. You'd play "Rockin Around The Christmas Tree" too.

I have some bad memories of Christmas music. I was scarred in grade school when we drove 3 1/2 hours from Orange County to the High Desert, and the only station we could get was playing Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" every twenty minutes. To this day I cannot listen to that song. Unfortunately it's one of Larry's favorites. But so is "Jingle Bells" barked out by dogs. I, on the other hand, prefer the classical stuff: Choir of Kings College Cambridge, Chanticleer, men throwing their voices like girls. It's not the only Christmas music I like, but I definitely gravitate toward it.

But our third Christmas together I'm finally coming to appreciate some of the songs on Larry's list. I despise Motown. The Supremes are like nails on a chalkboard. Yet I would put Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on my short list, even over the U2 version. And these days I'm really digging Mariah Carey's "Silent Night."

Larry and his sister Dianna introduced me to the Mackenzie brothers "Twelve Days Of Christmas. I think it must have been a sketch on Second City TV. (SCTV).
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me ... Beer.
Eight comic books, seven packs of smokes, six packs of tooth forks, five golden touques!
Four pounds of back bacon, three French toasts two turtlenecks, and a Beer. In a tree.

I do love some modern Christmas songs, but others are useless. Like Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again?" And all over town little kids gonna get down ... Christmas is a rockin' time, put your body next to mine ... hope you have a good one, I hope momma gets her shoppin' done... ACK. He must have had a contract to fulfill.

I bought a double album of "Essential Carols" by Kings College Cambridge. After the thirteenth carol, they all started to sound like a bunch of castratis singing in a catacomb about "lo the feathered pheasant flies, ring-dong ding now death must die, Aleluiah hodie, Yay-Zoo Christus Natus Est." It actually made me nostalgic for "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree." For a nanosecond.

"So Susan, do you like anything? At all?'' Sure I do. I've got a long list of songs I love, but here's the short list to start.

Est Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, J.E. Gardiner Montiverdi Choir
Christmas Time is Here (instrumental), Vince Guaraldi. From "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
Gaudete, Steeleye Span
Do They Know It's Christmas? Band Aid. Totally 80s.
Christmas Time Is Here Again, The Beatles: Their Christmas messages got weirder every year. This was before acid and Yoko.
Christmas for Cowboys, John Denver. Larry introduced me to this one.
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy, David Bowie & Bing Crosby. From a TV special.
All I Want for Christmas is You, Mariah Carey
The Holly And The Ivy, George Winston -- from the album December. Still holds up.
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). Darlene Love. Makes me almost love Motown.
Oy to the World, No Doubt. When you need to get rid of the sticky sweet.
12 Days of Christmas, Bob & Doug McKenzie. From Second City TV. Hysterical.
Huron Carol, Chanticleer. The first Native American carol.
The Infant King (Old Basque), King's College Cambridge. Just discovered this one.
Same Old Lang Syne, Dan Fogelberg. You may remember it. It IS a Christmas song.
O Magnum Mysterium, Chanticleer.
Coventry Carol, King's College Cambridge
O Tannenbaum, Vince Guaraldi
Silent Night, Mariah Carey
Some Children See Him George Winston
Happy Christmas/War is Over, John Lennon.
All That I Want, The Weepies. A new one I discovered through Lori Rooney.
Christmas Bells, John Gorka. From Larry's list.

You might recognize "Est Is Ein Ros Entsprungen" as "Lo how A Rose E'er Blooming," and before you write it off as just another castrati singing in a catacomb, have a listen here.

There is much more to say about Christmas, and Advent, and what it really meant that God emptied himself, squished himself down into the most meager vulnerable human form. But I'll leave that for next time.