It's the time of year again for those wonderful sounds of the season... "humorous" Christmas songs. I am by nature a lover of traditional Christmas carols, so secular Christmas songs don't necessarily do that much for me.* Especially ones that are supposed to make me laugh.**
I really detest "Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer." It's mean spirited and cruel. The fact that the Rocket Scientist's grandmother died right around Christmas doesn't help, either. And "Santa Baby" is just... blech.
I do have an odd fondness for the Chipmunks. I won't give the title of the song, since it is such an infectious earworm that just seeing the name can cause discomfort, and I like all of you too much to do that to you. I also like "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas," which the rest of my family royally loathes. I'm not sure if that makes me like it more, but it doesn't hurt. My kids like Weird Al's "Christmas at Ground Zero," which is the only Weird Al song that I not only dislike but actually cannot listen to. (It tends to wrap itself in a massive Mobius strip with "Jingle Bell Rock" in my brain -- a loop from hell that goes around and around and WILL NOT STOP.)
The two very best comedic Christmas songs take dead aim at the materialism of the season, as displayed in the myth of Santa Claus and the competitive race to have the best Christmas lights. (Actually, that last sentence is hypocritical of me: I adore Christmas lights, wish they went up in July, and feel there is no such things as too many of them. The guy who choreographed his lights to the music of the TransSiberian Orchestra is my hero.)
Herewith, the Barenaked Ladies ode to labor, "Elf's Lament":
And the wonderful send-up of those of us who believe that, when it comes to Christmas decoration, more is always more, "Fifty Kilowatt Tree" by The Bobs:
*Or contemporary religious songs, either. Whomever wrote that godawful "Christmas Shoes" country song a few years ago should be taken out and have a stake of holly driven through his heart. Or mistletoe. Something suitably druidic and Yule-flavored.
**Except for Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Bruce rocks, in every possible sense of that verb.
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