Said the night wind to the little lamb...

Well, before I say anything else, David Sedaris is funny. Me Talk Pretty One Day is probably the funniest book I've every read; and I'm only feeling the need to share this today because I picked up Holidays on Ice earlier. By the way, I highly recommend checking out "Make that a Double" from Pretty--it's hilarious.

Anyways...

Do you hear what I hear?
What I really wanted to mention today--on Christmas Eve--is my favorite Christmas songs. I've got 3, and I like these above others because they never fail to brighten my mood. While I do appreciate Vanessa Williams' versions of "Go Tell It on the Mountain / Mary Had a Baby" and "What Child is This", Enya's Gaelic "Silent Night", and some others, they don't inspire me like these:

• All I Want for Christmas is You (Mariah Carey)--Mariah's bouncy addition to the Holiday songbook never fails to make me smile. And while it's starting to be redone by others, Mariah's still my fave.
• Feliz Navidad--I'm not exactly sure who sings the "classic" version that I like so, but I do know it is not Celine Dion. What possessed the French-Canadian chanteuse to cover a Spanglish song, I'll never know; I just know she makes me appreciate the "real" version all the more, with its mariachi/ranchero vibe in all its glory.
• Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (Elmo & Patsy)--From rhyming "scene of the attack" with "incriminating claw marks on her back", to its comical retelling of a normal Christmas nearly destroyed by a drunkenly stroll, this is pure holiday goodness. The video ain't too bad either. And why it got blacklisted from radio I don't understand.
  

Actually, Grandma reminds me of the biggest issues I've got with Christmas radio. It really pisses me off that radio (meaning the radio industry as a whole) feels the need to completely switch to Christmas formats before Thanksgiving (I may have even heard one start just after Halloween this year) and then just instantly switch back instantly at 12:01 a.m. on Dec.26. Now I really have 2 issues here: 1) I don't really want to hear just Christmas songs 24-7, except maybe Christmas Day; 2) I hate, hate, hate the implication that Christmastime is supposed to start in November and end with Christmas. Have these folks never heard of days called Thanksgiving or Little Christmas.... It's almost as if the marketing folks of the world are trying to convert the 12 days of Christmas to before the 25^th, rather than the time afterwards, running up to Jan.6.

I find it so bad that I consciously refuse to listen to the all-Christmas stations, which consequently means I basically don't hear any of my favorite noëls without a CD. All of which is unfortunate, because I do like to occasionally hear, say, Debbie Gibson's "Sleigh Ride" or Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", among others. I just wish they'd interlace those with non-Christmas songs, waxing the Christmas-song toward the 25^th, and then waning from the 26^th on...

But, Bah! Enough ranting, back to wrappin'.
Felicidades y Merry Christmas.