Dec. 15: Tis the season

 Last night, I said that I might watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special while lying in bed. Ash told me it's still too early in the season for that.

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When does the Christmas season start? Well, according to the marketing department at stores everywhere, it starts the day after Halloween. In fact, in many stores, it starts BEFORE Halloween. Witness all those China-made plastic Santas hovering in the far aisle at Dollarama around October 21, you'll know what I'm talking about.

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Here in Glengarry county, I'm fond of saying that the Christmas season starts with the annual Christmas tree lighting in Maxville. That always takes place in late November, usually the week after the Grey Cup is played. That same weekend, Maxville hosts its Santa Claus Parade. As a journalist, I have covered it about 20 times. One year, it was so unseasonably warm that people were watching it in T-shirts. Tis the season indeed.

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When we were kids, we wanted to go Christmas carolling on December 1. Dad forbade it. He said that was far too early to be doing Christmas stuff like that. We didn't even have the tree up yet.

Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I saw carollers strolling through the neighbourhood. One year, while working as a courier in Calgary, I stopped in at a skyscraper downtown and saw a quartet of carollers, all in Victorian attire, singing Christmas carols acapella. The security guard told me that the building management hired them to sing and put everyone in a merry mood. I didn't have a lot of time, I had a whole lot of envelopes and packages to deliver, but I gave them about 20 seconds of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I liked it. One of the singers looked a bit like Tim Curry.

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By this point in the ballgame, I have heard countless renditions of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. The song is a prayer. The singer is praying that God will give peace to the merry gentlemen to whom he is singing. If you walk up to someone on the street and tell them God loves them and you hope He gives them peace this holiday season, that person will probably try to extricate themselves from you. But if you sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, they will nod and smile and say thank you very much.

Music has a foothold. 

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Yes, and tis the season for Christmas music.

Tis the season for bad Christmas music (like WHAM's Last Christmas or Mariah's All I want for Christmas or John Lennon's War is Over (Happy Christmas) or Paul McCartney's Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime or Bing Crosby's Christmas Dinner Country Style or anything sung by Little Marcie.

But tis the season for good Christmas music as well. Tis the season for carols that are also hymns. Gimme some O Holy Night or Do You Hear What I Hear or Angels We Have Heard on High and I'll be a happy man this Christmas.

And you know what? Maybe I am a bit sentimental but I kind of like driving through the countryside, listening to Christmas music on the radio, and seeing all the lights. 

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Sometime between now and Christmas Day, I will try to steal a couple hours to watch the best Christmas movie of all time, which - as my longtime readers know - is the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Every year, I hope Tracy will survive. Every year she breaks my heart.

But hey, tis the season.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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