"The governor knew what he had to do. He confiscated their sports equipment..."

"... telling them that if they insisted on celebrating Christmas as a 'matter of devotion' they could do so privately at home, 'but there should be no gaming or reveling in the streets.'"

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last/ Next year we may all be living in the past."

The original lyric to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which I learned about after happening to catch the tail end of "Meet Me in St. Louis" while channel surfing last night. We happened to drop in just as Judy Garland was about to sing the much-loved Christmas tune, which might have been less-loved if Judy hadn't pushed for happier lyrics. The line, revised, is "Let your heart be light/Next year all our troubles will be out of sight."



What Judy and Margaret O'Brien are so sad about there is moving to New York. They love St. Louis.

Judy's version, in turn, was insufficiently happy for Frank Sinatra, who got the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" changed to "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough." Here's Frank. I think "muddle through" would have suited him — that edge of sadness. And "bough" is a silly word.

There's another place in the song with alternate lyrics: "Through the years, we all will be together if the fates allow," was originally "if the Lord allows." Judy sang "the fates," but returning to "the Lord" is something you can always do.

Meadhouse, kinkaidified...

... by Chip Ahoy:



... who explains how he did it here.

This is my original, mere reality, deemed too bleak by those who find fulfillment in the work of Thomas Kinkade:



And here's a genuine Kinkade Christmas scene, whose deer look familiar... except it seems that Chip took the trouble to give the older deer an upturned tail to match the fawn's. It's that kind of attention to detail that turns our hearts aglow, like windows in that humble cottage... there, across yon half-frozen stream:

Did you get what you wanted?

Like I did, back in 1958:

Kerry Gordon — "sensational scientist!" — asked by Sam Wilson — "a wastrel wordsmith" — to fulfill his "one wish: wedlock!"

"Dare she pursue this preposterous proposition?"

See all "32 Fables from the Foreseeable Future," in PDF, here.

"Seal songs finally make sense...."

"No: Ennui...."

Forecast: "prancing party ponies with precipitation of presents."

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas!

The end of a Christmas caroling tradition.

The NY Post reports:

The tradition began in the late 1970s when cabaret singer John Wallowitch would walk by Berlin’s [NYC] house and warble “White Christmas” while walking his dog, Winnie. Five years on, in 1983, he had added a group of fellow performers, and Berlin, then 95, famously welcomed the carolers inside for cocoa and cookies. They sang in his home’s beautiful ballroom from then on. After Berlin’s death, when the house became Luxembourg’s consulate and permanent mission to the UN, the tradition continued.

Berlin died 23 years ago, so that's a long time for Luxembourg to put up with this intrusion, but having done it for so long, you'd think the traditional would be so deeply internalized that they would never let it go. And how many other ways does Luxembourg have to inspire love here in America?

But Luxembourg Consul-General Jean-Claude Knebeler explains he was forced to stuff the ballroom with office equipment because his country was elected as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and so is housing more staff for two years.

Security Council?! That's the excuse?

Pat Sajak condemned as a pronunciation Nazi.

When "seven swans a-swimmin'" for "seven swans a-swimming" costs Navy Intel Specialist Renee Durette $4,000.

The "a-" beginning makes it seem as though you should be doing Southern American dialect, but "The 12 Days of Christmas" is set in an English aristocratic milieu (with lords and ladies).

More importantly, "Wheel of Fortune" is all about letters, so obviously they've got to be pedantic about getting all the letters.

Anyway... one more reason to be sick of that song. Or do you like it? Here it is by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

At the Look-at-the-Tree Café...

... aw, look at the tree.

Dancing with the Devil... for Christmas...

... in simpler times:



"I'm not completely convinced that your intentions are honorable."

At the Black Dog Café...

... there's lots of bright, cold... mud. And I don't know what made you lie down in that muddy puddle — again and again. But you brought it home, and you're decorating our house with it... in mid-December. Meade got out the vacuum cleaner, when maybe what we really need is the Christmas tree... in that box, down there in the basement.

"And after the miracle birth, Joseph and Mary rejoiced by eating the giant Cheeto."

Regretsy... making fun of Etsy, which I was just reading about here ("Etsy Crafts A Strategy For Staying Handmade And Profitable").

"[T]he less comfortable you are during the seasonal shopping spree, the more money you’ll spend."

"So stores crank up music, repeat the same songs, over and over again, pipe in smells, race shoppers around to far-flung points of purchase and clog their heads with confusing offers. All of which makes it more likely we’ll part more readily with more money."

Oh, really? I'd say it makes it much more likely that smart, sensitive people will shop on line. (Preferably, going in through the Althouse portal.) You can play any music you want, enjoy blissful silence, or — as I'm doing — listen to your loved one softly singing "Golden Slumbers."

Side note: I love the illustration by Sam Vanallemeersch (at the first link).

"We have 54 trees in the White House... 54! That’s a lot of trees."

Said Michelle Obama, decorously refraining from calling them Christmas trees. We, the taxpayers, paid for them, whether they symbolize anything religious or not. We're also paying various costs associated with the First Family's trip to Hawaii from December 17 to January 6.

54 Christmas trees and they're leaving town a week before Christmas?!

"Holiday music is often the domain of musicians who do the bare minimum."

"Available shortcuts abound: So many standards reside in the public domain, the arrangements write themselves, and expectations for the work as a whole generally hover somewhere in the neighborhood of 'This could be nice, I suppose.'"

The exception, NPR tells us, is Sufjan Stevens. Lots of streamable Christmasables over there, so you can check that assertion. I'm dubious, but I stopped 10 seconds into "Silent Night," the first song.

What are you listening to or singing these days? Christmassmedia or something else?

(If you're buying anything, enter through the Althouse portal to Amazon to send me some holiday cheer... as I sit here in the predawn, in a room lit only by the computer screen. I will type on and on whether you acknowledge me Amazonishly or not, but I do appreciate the cybergesture.)

"Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don't know what Christmas is all about."

It's all about... terror!

Politico's Ben Smith calls some Gingrich video "Possibly the weirdest video of the cycle."

But the video is down now, so I have no idea what that was about. Other than Christmas.

A little more info, at HuffPo:

The video, posted December 23, features the Republican presidential hopeful's New Hampshire staffers decked out in Santa hats, singing to the tune of "Deck the Halls." While the group sings of Newt's solutions stopping Obama's "trauma," one staffer dons an elf outfit and runs around Gingrich's New Hampshire office.

So... maybe the problem was the implication that an "elf outfit" is "gay apparel." (Paging David Sedaris.)

In other news... a teacher in a Michigan elementary school changed the "Deck the Halls" lyrics after the kids laughed at "Don we now our gay apparel." She made it "bright apparel" and then got publicly criticized for not turning it into a "teachable moment." Video at the link of the principal telling the reporter: "We have an anti-discrimination and bullying policy that includes sexual orientation, and so, going forward, the teacher will be addressing: this is how we're supposed to be reacting, this is how to be respectful about this."

"Gay" is not a bad word... I agree. But can you really teach people not to laugh at the silly line "Don we now our gay apparel"? Nothing makes you want to laugh more than being forbidden to laugh. And "gay" is supposed to mean mirthful. Where's the mirth? If mirth is forbidden because we must be respectful and ever on the alert for incipient bullying, then I think you need to pick another song. But "Deck the Halls" is one of the best secular Christmas songs.

What are you going to do? Maybe we need to recognize that music is not compatible with the highest values of the public schools of the United States:

It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning respect for all minority groups and essential and useful bullying resisting skills and fill their time with teachable moments and healthy recreations instead of music.

ADDED: My son Chris tells me about the time, years ago, when he was in a public school chorus that had to sing the song "Scarlet Ribbons" and the kids were forbidden to laugh about the line "I peeked in and on her bed/In gay profusion lying there..." Chris IM's:

we had to practice a lot to get to the point where we wouldn't laugh on that line, and we had been able to do it in the last rehearsals, but then in the performance someone laughed, that made everyone laugh, and it made you laugh and you had to cover your face and sort of put your head down

It almost seems like bullying to put the kids through that! [LATER: I just realized that the "you" in his description referred to me! It still makes me laugh right now.]

"Now that my war on Christmas is over, I can begin my war on New Years."

Steve Martin tweets.

"I'm about as secular as a person could reasonably be..."

"... but not secular enough to grumble about other people's enjoyment of what they regard as the birthday celebration for their spiritual savior," says Geoffrey K. Pullum, at Language Log.

From my kitchen here in Edinburgh right now, I can hear the bell of Broughton St. Mary's Church calling the flock in for the Christmas morning service, and it doesn't make me bristle. And I don't mind the huge Norwegian Christmas tree that is always erected on The Mound behind the Scottish National Gallery (a gift from Hordaland in Norway in memory of close ties during the Second World War) being called a Christmas tree. The nativity scenes put up here and there annoy me to the same extent as the menoras in some windows, which is to say, absolutely not at all.

The Christmas Eve carol service from King's College Cambridge, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, is worth hearing by anyone who appreciates high-quality choral music, and if some public funds are used to get the outside broadcast trucks to Cambridge and the mikes set up, I say good, spend it. The BBC's short sermon each morning, "Thought For The Day", studiously circulates through Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Islam, so determined are they to be eclectic in their spiritual uplift. I disappear into the shower rather than hear the platitudes, but I'm not inclined to campaign for removing them from the airwaves. Considering that the UK actually is a theocracy (the reigning monarch is both head of state and head of the uniquely established church that the state recognizes), it's all pretty relaxed and inclusive and not worth a serious person's protest time.

The UK actually is a theocracy... but a serious, completely secular person shouldn't mind it at all.