It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

No, I’m not about to do a Musikalischer Mittwoch about “American Pie”  (I can more or less promise that won’t ever happen–I don’t hate the song, but it’s been eye-rollingly over-done in my corner of the Universe).

I’m talking about how my favorite radio station totally killed music.

The country station I listen to (the one that plays old shit and does not mock my less-than-secret love of Hee-Haw) decided to become the 24/7 Christmas station for the area starting the day after Thanksgiving.  I would applaud this but for two things:

1) They said this will run through 26 December.  Um.  Yeah.  No.  Twelve days of Christmas, yo (and more than that if you’re smart and milk both Roman Catholic/Protestant AND Orthodox)

and (this is the important one)

2) I haven’t heard a Christmas song yet.  Or any other song.

This station was always a bit heavy on the advertisements in the mornings.  That’s to be expected for any station, so I’m annoyed, but forigiving. But since the alleged Christmas rotation started, I have heard about nothing but collision repair, vinyl siding and the price of brisket for a grocery chain whose nearest store is 30 minutes from me.

I knew the Christmas music thing was going to be a bad gimmick, but I didn’t think it would be this awful.  How can I mock the craptastic renditions of “Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer” if I never get to HEAR them?!?!

To start:  Yes, I’m missing a lot of posts.  That is due to a work-related time vampire that I am just not going to discuss because it’s entirely too suck-tastic.

And now that I’m here thanks to the wonder of one of the few holidays we haven’t destroyed completely in this country*…..

Except that I’m here later than I expected because, it’s officially post-Thanksgiving-meal-consumption for me, which is my stated prerequisite for starting up Christmas music.  And I wanted friggin’ holiday cheer blaring before I started typing.  So, I sit down at ye olde PC…..about 2-3 hours ago.

Trouble is, I had hell getting MP3s loaded.  To own the truth, I am still playing them ones-y, two-sy.

In the off-season, when I’m shifting files around on computers to make space, or set up a new drive, the first thing to get shuffled aside in a less-than-orderly fashion, are the Christmas MP3s.  It’s generally done because, well, I won’t need them until after Thanksgiving, and of COURSE I’ll get them organized again before then.

Except I don’t.

So, here I am, ready to start rockin’ to my Danish Santa Rap, Juleman, and….where the hell was that file?

First there’s the consolidation into one location, then there’s dumb-ass iTunes and it’s molasses-in-January loading process (although, I suppose I shouldn’t blame iTunes totally….I have fairly extensive collection of holiday tune-age.  By-product of being a practically-Christmas-baby).  During this process, I get fed up and start my internet search for the killer-app to replace this nightmare that we call iTunes.  Download a few.  Install.  Realize they won’t fit the bill, go back to loading iTunes.  And here I sit, just now attempting to get this thing posted while a folder sits open next to this window so I can right click on a Christmas song and tell it to play in Winamp so as not to disturb the goings-on of iTunes (why don’t I just use Winamp?!?!?!)

Then again, the real time vampire in this is probably my own lack of organization….

*Though we’re working on it–I mean, whatever meaning it had, racist or not, is pretty much gone–but so far it’s still a mandatory day off.  Except for those poor SOBs in retail.  And because of that, the slippery slope is in place to make this into another work-day for the rest of us where only those with vacation time and forgiving superiors can manage to take the day.

This entry less-than-thoughtfully composed to the following soundtrack: “Kaj i kanen” - Kølig Kaj; “Podsafe Christmas Song” – Jonathan Coulton; “Es Wird Scho Glei Dumpa” – Stefanie Hertel & Stefan Mross; “Christmas Wishes” – Anne Murray; “Throw The Yule Log On, Uncle John” – The Christopher Wren Singers; “Wenn ein neues Jahr geboren wird” – Claudia Jung.

First of all, an announcement:  Some of you may have noticed that we went two days without posting.  We’re going on a brief hiatus here until Cammy and I can get to our respective homes.  Cammy is in another hemisphere without access to the interwebs and I am at my parents’ house where the internet is slower than dial-up (it has taken me twenty minutes so far to make this post).  We know you’ll miss us desperately, but try to be strong.

And now for today’s actual post…

I’m guessing our five readers are probably sick of reading my musings over being thirty years old and unmarried.  I really am okay with it.  I have a great life.  I haven’t found the right person.  And I am certain that it’s better to be single than married to the wrong person.  But there are certain times I really wish I had a husband stowed away somewhere I could roll out for important occasions.

Most of said occasions involve my family and holidays.  Christmas especially.

Families and family holiday celebrations tend to revolve around their youngest generation.  And that’s how it should be.  Christmas should be about the kids.  But being the one member of my immediate family without kids, this means that I no longer matter in holiday planning.  We had our family Christmas celebration on a night I had to work this year because my mother checked with everyone but me.  When everyone realized I was working there was no thought of changing things—it was decided I could just go to work from our Christmas celebration.  Keep in mind that my job involves tying my body in knots, so any sort of holiday culinary indulgence was off the table, so to speak.

I really don’t mind things revolving around the kids so much as I don’t understand why things revolving around the kids means my brother and sister are exempt from any work.  My mother and I do all the cooking for the big holiday buffet (actually two of them since there’s one for brunch and one for dinner).  My brother and sister don’t even bother offering to bring anything anymore.  Keep in mind that I’m brining one mouth to the table, my sister is bringing four and my brother is bringing five.  And while meals are planned around the tastes and distastes of my brother, sister, their spouses and children, my tastes are not regarded at all.  This year I helped cook shrimp for those people, even though the smell of shellfish makes me want o vomit.

Then there’s the present opening ritual.  My job at this point is to stand in the corner with a trash bag collecting wrapping paper (as the old maid spinster sister I open my presents at a different time when there aren’t so many people around).  It’s as though we’re following some sort of nineteenth century custom where spinster aunts suddenly become part of the household staff.

Don’t get me wrong; this is just venting.  I love my family and it’s always great to see them.  And the upside of working post-holiday celebration is it gives me a means to escape—I love my nieces and nephews, but there’s only so long I want to be in a crowded house with five children between the ages of eleven and three.

It’s just sometimes playing the role of spinster in the family gets a bit tiresome.

As we have discussed ad nauseum around here, Cammy is currently in the Land Down Under.  Where it is currently summer.  Cammy was quite distressed about the prospect of celebrating Christmas during the Summer.  I don’t think I was fully able to comprehend why this was so distressing.  I was born in Hawaii and the first Christmases I can really remember were celebrated in Florida.  Cammy had plenty of warm Christmases living in Texas, but she’s used to at least some sort of seasonal change.  I’m a little more okay with things not working the way seasons dictate they should.

In fact, I’d be quite happy if things in Virginia were a little less seasonally appropriate.  I know everyone gets all twitterpated about the prospect of a white Christmas… they’re welcome to have mine.   It started snowing early afternoon on Christmas day and didn’t stop until sometime late last night.  All told we are under fourteen inches of snow here at my parents house.  And let’s be clear, where my folks live, they have no clue what to do with this much snow.  This means my brother couldn’t come over yesterday to untangle whatever the heck my father has done to his wireless connection that makes it run at dial-up speeds.  The trip to the local outlet mall is canceled.  Any further visits with my brother and sister before my Aunt leaves are unlikely.  Grocery shopping is an implausibility.  Oh yes, and we are under threat of power loss at any moment from falling trees.  Tons of fun.

While driving home from work Christmas night the song “White Christmas” came on the CD player in my mother’s car.  I admit to a little cynical laughter.  I was not dreaming of a white Christmas.  I was dreaming of an 80 degree Christmas.  Just like the ones I used to know.

First of all, we here at It’s My TV, It’s My Peanut Butter would like to wish a happy birthday to faithful reader Bridget!  Hope it was a good one!

Second, a slightly updated version of a classic holiday song!

On the first day of Christmas
My Bloggers Gave to Me
A really lame entry.

On the second day of Christmas
My Bloggers Gave to Me
Two rotten tags
And a really lame entry

On the third day of Christmas
My bloggers gave to me
Three dead links
Two rotten tags
And a really lame entry

On the fourth day of Christmas….Four random photos…
On the fifth day….5 MP3s…
Sixth day 6 new categories…
7th day 7 comment responses…
8th day 8 crappy captchas…
9th day 9 login errors…
10th day 10 timeless tweets…
11th day 11 stupid widgets…
12th day 12 reasons not to read on…

Once again, we here at It’s My TV, It’s My Peanut Butter would like to wish you all a happy holiday.  I’m rather exhausted, having just gotten home from work.

Yes, that’s right.  I worked on Christmas.

It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last time I’m sure.  When you work in entertainment, particularly a type of entertainment people partake of mostly on vacation, the times when other people are off work are the times you get the most work.

Honestly, I don’t mind.  It’s good to have work.  And working on Christmas can often (although for me it didn’t this time) carry fringe benefits like higher pay rates or free food.  And cliché though it may be, customers tend to be in a better mood, which makes work a little more pleasant.

It’s possible that this whole working on a major holiday thing is a little easier for me to assimilate because my mother worked about every other Christmas growing up.  She’s a nurse and babies don’t stop being born because it’s a holiday.  As she well knows since she was herself born on Christmas day.

At any rate, there are worse things to do with Christmas than work.  But however you spent it, we just hope it was a good one.

We at MTV, MPB hope you are all having a cozy, comfy Christmas Eve surrounded by food, music, booze and people you love (who, hopefully, aren’t pissing you off).  It’s Christmas Eve Day!  In the words of one of the top 3 ficitional FBI agents ever, one Seeley Booth “Christmas Eve Day!  It’s both an eve and a day!  It’s a Christmas Miracle!”

Unfortunately, Christmas has always felt like it kind of jumps the shark on Christmas eve.  I always prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day because in my Mom’s family, Christmas Eve is the primary day of celebration.  There’s also my old church Christmas Eve service which was always one of my favorite services and was the first time I ever remember enjoying church.  Honestly, you let me stay up past my bedtime, you turn off the lights, you give me fire AND you tell me to sing Silent Night?  That’s a Venn Diagram of awesome when you’re 6.

It’s also that last chance to look forward to something.  Even when we opened our gifts on Christmas Eve, there was that potential for something else to come along or to happen on Christmas day.  You may not get anything else, but the odds are better than on most other days of the year.  And besides, there were people to visit and places to go on Christmas Day, so a little anticipation lingered.  But once you get to Christmas Day itself?  The anticipation is all gone.

And there’s no mystique to Christmas Day.  It is what it is.  No one tells stories about animals being able to talk on Christmas Day–it’s Christmas Eve.  Even the bulk of the events of the Christmas story itself take place on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day.  In fact, I was pretty convinced as a kid (and, what the heck, I still am) that to the extent that there’s truth in the Christmas story?  Baby Jesus was really born on Christmas Eve right before midnight.  Because it’s just cooler that way.

So, enjoy this Christmas miracle of Eve and Day colliding into one.  Stay warm.  Stay safe.  And try to remember there’s 12 whole days to Christmas and there’s absolutely NO good reason not to capitalize on that and extend the fun beyond this epic evening.

In the Cammy Countdown of Christmas Favorites, Silent Night is, and always has been, number one.  And since it’s my birthday (at least it is on the side of the dateline  where I’m hanging out this holiday season), I find it oddly satisfying to get to discuss one of my favorite pieces of music.

Whether you believe the tale that Stille Nacht came into being because a snow-bound Austrian village suffered a broken pipe-organ and the priest and organist decided to team up and compose a fitting musical tribute to Christmas Eve that could be played on a guitar instead., or that  it was that the priest wanted a song that his congregation could sing in their native German tongue as opposed to the plethora of Latin hymns available, the song is, simply wonderful.

Emphasis on the simply.

It’s really not a complicated melody.  It’s simple, easy, versatile.  I’ll admit that I was shocked when I first learned that it was originally written to be far more upbeat and snappy than the slow lullaby-esque version most of us are familiar with.  It works either way.  Speed it up, slow it down, use a full bodied orchestral arrangement, or strip it down to a single vocalist with an acoustic guitar–musically, it’s the little-black-dress of tunes that works no matter the occasion.

Maybe it’s the flexibility of the tune that’s led to the spread.  It’s been translated in to dozens if not hundreds of languages.  I’ve heard versions in Norwegian, Italian, English and, of course, German.  It’s been a common denominator in a pause on a battle field (“Belleau Wood” by Garth Brooks being a fine musical take off on Silent Night in the Christmas Truce….just try to ignore the fact that the battle of Belleau wood was fought in June).  But mostly?  It gives me the warm and fuzzies like no other piece of music in the world.

So, no matter what your beliefs or non-beliefs, and no matter whether your share Cammy’s obsession with Silent Night, we here at MTV, MPB hope you all get the warm and fuzzies tonight, tomorrow night and every night throughout the winter season (onces it warms up, we only wish you fuzzies, not heat).

Once a year, at Christmas, I appreciate my near sightedness.

Any other time of year, the fact that I can’t function without glasses or contacts is a real downer. But, at Christmas, it’s different.

At first, I thought it was just me. But Megan, a friend of Kristy’s and mine, affirmed this feeling, being near-sighted herself.

If you suffer from this affliction, find some colored Christmas lights, take off (or out) your corrective aids, and just look. Christmas lights are fun no matter what, but they take on a special beauty in the unfocused eyes of someone with myopia. I almost pity those of you with good vision. Camera work can sort-of recreate the fuzzy, glowing image, but not quite. You don’t get quite the layered effect. And it’s a very unique and personal scene–I’m sure Megan’s fuzzy Christmas light view is different than mine, if only because my eyes were weaker than hers (if the prescription on our respective spectacles was any indicator). I get the added bonus of twinkles in my view. As the muscles in my eye shift to try and bring the sight into focus (failing miserably), the tiny glowing balls of light twinkle, expanding and contracting as a I stare at the mix of red, green, gold, blue….

It’s a simple indulgence to dim the room lights, put on the Christmas music, remove my glasses and just sit and stare for a while. It’s better than any meditation or yoga, and makes me momentarily thankful for my visual handicap.

Apologies to the non-Christian readers among you, but today is the first Sunday of Advent, which is, traditionally, the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christian churches–prep time for the Nativity, if you will.

It’s also the time of year when you get to start playing with those really cool calendars which count down to Christmas.  This is where I get interested.  I like surprises.  The idea of opening a little door and getting a tiny surprise is kind of awesome.   If you’re lucky, you’ll get one with pieces of chocolate behind each door.  Personally, I think every calendar should give chocolate for each day.  Double chocolate if it’s a crappy day like April 15.  And Election days (yes, I’m happy to vote, but I’m rarely pleased with the choices).

The only trouble is that the doors are so tiny, there’s only so much you can get back there.  Sometimes it’s just a picture (or a part of a picture).  Or that bite of candy (yeah, because I’m not eating enough over the holidays).  It would be tough to cram my own personal Mr. Darcy back there, sadly.    Sure, I know it’s only supposed to build up to Christmas (Mr. Darcy in a box under my tree?  Huzzah!), but would it kill ‘em to bump those calendar’s up a bit?  Say, an iTunes download?

We thought of rigging up an Advent calendar here at MTV, MPB, but we never came up with an idea worthy of our readership (translation: we procrastinated too long to come up with a good idea).  So your Advent surprises this season?  The joy of clicking the link to see what manner of semi-entertaining crap we’ve given you for that day.

Oh, and a daily wish of virtual chocolate.