It's About That Time...

I don't mean for another post, necessarily--I mean it's CHRISTMAS! Buck-ba-CAAAW! (That's an inside joke, one which I may get around to explaining here someday soon, though I'm not sure I can...)

I've seen two wreaths on doors already, and yes, I mean the Christmas kind, not the other, all-year-round-non-Christmas kind, a decoration that seems to have inexplicably popped up in the last few years. Seriously, where did all these unaffiliated wreaths come from? If I had seen a wreath on someone's door back in, say, July 1981, I'da figured the tenants for nuts. Yet I can't deny that my wife and I now have several hanging around our own home. (Hm. I guess my original supposition would still hold.)

I haven't heard any Christmas music on the radio, but Donna and I were in a store that had some playing. It wasn't on the PA system, just a boombox playing quietly by the Christmas section, but that seemed appropriate. Gotta ease into the season...

Right now I have the Holiday Ranch Campfire Memories evergreen incense smoldering. I got it at an estate sale here--copyright says 1953--but it's very similar to the kind I used to burn as a kid to give our blatantly artificial tree a little oomph.

I haven't had my first viewing of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol yet, but TBS showed The Grinch last night, about half of which we watched. Musically, I've had a few platters on. Started with Guaraldi, of course, then skipped around my Reader's Digest collections for some choice selections: Bill Anderson's "Christmas Time's A-Coming," Bonnie Guitar's "Christmastime is Here," Charley Pride's "Out of the East." Then, the other night I dragged out a real relic of the past: The NY Islanders 1979 Christmas album, "Home For the Holidays."

I never really listened to it much as a lad, and another spin makes it clear why. It's awful. Most of the tunes are really sung by the "official singer" for the team, Joe Duerr, who falls vocally somewhere between Jack Jones and Graham Chapman singing "Christmas in Heaven" in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The players are relegated to gruffly belting out the most childish numbers, like "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Rednose [sic] Reindeer." (As I recall, grammar was always optional on Long Island.)

Strangely, separating the last two songs on both sides, there's about thirty seconds of noisy, indecipherable chatting among what sounds like a cafeteria full of Islanders and their wives. Did the organization want to give fans the experience of being ignored by the team at a dinner function? Still, that rumbling din is arguably more enjoyable than the Casio-fied discotrociousness of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," or the painfully prolapsed "White Christmas." And I'm no music critic, but on "All I Want for Christmas" (very cute, fellas), the Potvins are a little pitchy, and someone clearly isn't giving their all--I'm looking at you, Clark Gillies!

I just realized I'm hammering a thirty-year-old Christmas LP by a sports team. If you're reading this, we both need help, and you even more so if you found this via search engine. Go back to it and type in "therapists" and your zip code. Me, I'm going to youtube to find the WPIX holiday movie intro from the early eighties, then I'm gonna fire up the ol' VHS... Ringle, ringle...

Oh, one last thing--here's a snap of The Feebs himself upon a recent visit to our home, relaxing with our boy Patrick. Patrick has been recovering well. The Feebs, less so.

And because I missed Halloween, here's a little something for your nightmares.