The 12 Rules of Christmas Carols

Admit it.  You wish you’d just finished writing the definitive current-day Christmas Carol.  Something timely and special that everyone will eventually detest after hearing it for the 100th time over the years.

The most recent entry appears to be Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” currently #1 on the Billboard Top 100 Christmas Songs, followed by Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree,” and Burl Ives, “Holly Jolly Christmas.”  How do they come up with this stuff? Did you vote? I must have misplaced my ballot.

Regardless, writing a catchy American Christmas Tune seems to defeat the usual melodic mortality that accompanies pop songs.  Wouldn’t you agree, Brenda and Burl?

So in support of your quest, here are a few suggestions.  Take them to heart, and your success is assured.

1) Simple, simple words.  Jingle all the way. At most, use 3rd grade vernacular to wish us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

2) Catchy melody that anyone can hum.  Your task is to create an earworm that will last at least until the New Year.  Bonus points if your victims cannot remove it until Easter.

3) Nonsense words.  Fa la la la lah, la la la lah!  Both rhythmically distinctive and easy to remember. Or extend a syllable. Glorrrrrr-or-or-or-or-oooo-or-or-or-or-oooo-or-or-or-or-oor-ee-yah!

Did Van Morrison write this?

4) Use bells.  Belltones always set the stage for our image of Christmas.  Use silver bells if you can afford them.

5) Make up words for specific rhyming needs, but don’t get carried away.  Things like “mistletoeing” work, but don’t overdo it.

Do you feel the chill?

6) Use Images of snow and cold, even though your song will be sung in Memphis and Poway, a town in the hills above San Diego.  Accurate meteorology is discouraged. But don’t worry, southern dwellers. The song’s images only project the Christmas aura, not a harbinger of global cooling.  But you need to know that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

6) Create or invoke characters to augment your story and help your rhymes.  Parson Brown, Frosty, Rudolph, Harking Harold the singer, drummer boys...any sympathetic soul who helps tell the story.

Hark.

6) Repeat words, and don’t use too many.  No one knows the second verse to “We Three Kings of Orient Are”.  Is there one? Yes, and the words are not “Tried to smoke a rubber cigar...” 

7) Gay is OK.  Everyone wants to be gay in Christmas Carols.  In fact, there is a glaring need for a few really Gay Christmas Carols, double entendre or not.  And hey, yesterday and today, “gay” rhymes with sleigh, Christmas buffet, Blue Jay, Cabernet, and Papier-mache, eh?  But you need to avoid slay, D-Day, ashtray, doomsday, radioactive decay, m’aider, and especially Green Bay, or you’ll alienate everyone in Detroit, Chicago, and the Twin Cities.

7) A few words of non-English language can help, or you can use a foreign sounding name.  (Coincidentally, Felix Navidad was a teammate of mine long ago. He was a solid midfielder.)

7) Encourage good behavior.  You can even invoke creepy surveillance in a good cause.  Sorry Mr. Zuckerberg, you can’t take credit for this concept. Santa was into big data long before you even thought about spying on us.

8) Be inclusive.  Make the carol accessible to all.  And expect your listeners to understand your words with the best possible interpretation.  "White Christmas" is not a racist anthem.

8) Invoke memories.  They don’t need to be real.  Very few have roasted chestnuts on an open fire, particularly since the American Chestnut blight beset the trees over 100 years ago.  Yes, you can get Chinese Chestnuts, but it’s just not the same.

Not all that fat in this rendition.

9) Disregard the laws of physics.  No matter how small the reindeer may be, they’re still heavier than air.  No adult male can get down a chimney flue, and especially not a fat one. Covering the globe in one night is impossible.  We don’t care.

9) Allusions to desire are permitted.  Even infidelity. Acquiring two front teeth is a noble goal, even while watching your mother’s dalliance with a brightly costumed stranger.

9) We already have one “cumulative verse” carol.  We don’t need another. So forget writing about the 15 days of package delivery, or counting down the advent calendar.

9) Be sure to be insanely, irrationally happy.  Invoke a Christmas that is peaceful, unhurried, harmonious, and without stress. In other words, nothing like actual experience.  Sorry, Kinks and John Lennon, though we love your music, your Christmas efforts are just too dark.  Don’t rob us of our illusions. But there are exceptions. If the dark stuff is for comedic effect, then it’s OK to run Grandma over.

Puppies and angels.
Can it get any better?

10) Go heavy on the schmaltz.  And since this yiddish word perfectly captures this facet of Christmas Carols, why not a Jewish Carol?  Jesus was a Jew, right? Don’t let the Gentiles have all the fun!

11) Don’t discount religious carols, even though some of the above rules may not apply.  After all, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Jesus is actually the reason for the season. Franz Xaver Gruber wrote “Stille Nacht” over 200 years ago!  Not a bad lifetime for a tune.  

12) “What Child Is This?” appeared in 1865, when William Chatterton Dix adapted “Greensleeves” to Christmas, pointing out another excellent technique.  Don’t be afraid to use existing melodies, particularly if their copyright protection has expired.

There you have it.  I know I speak for everyone in saying that we can’t wait to hear your creation.  And as soon as it gets figured out, we’ll discuss how to publicize your splendid creation.  Could you please forward Mariah Carey’s email address?

And God rest ye, Merry Gentlereaders.

Some Enchanted Evening

Mom has always loved music.  

At the family homestead, there were plenty of LPs on the shelf near the big old console stereo.  The turntable played 78, 45, and 33 RPM disks, and was fully automatic. At the end of each record, the mechanism would sense the position of the heavy gray tonearm with the eye-dots that made it look like a snake, and pick the needle up off the disk to return to the rest position.  

In addition to stopping after playing a single record, it allowed loading a bunch of records on the tall spindle. When one record finished playing, and the tone arm was retracted, the next record would flop down atop the first, provided the catching mechanism was doing it’s job and the whole stack didn’t come crashing down.  Not only was it a mechanical marvel, the tubes from the electronics provided the side benefit of heating the living room.

After my Allan Sherman period exhausted itself, and I declared myself the DJ for the family, I began placing my own records on the player for the educational benefit of the entire family.  The Tijuana Brass was followed by Blood, Sweat, and Tears, which was followed by initialed bands like CSN and ELP (REM and UB40 came much later, and AC/DC and ABBA were never appealing, for completely different reasons.  Totally missed MC5.) and many others with actual names.

Can’t say that there are many memories of actually hearing it played, but the record that was most often replaced when my superior recordings were about to be heard was the South Pacific Soundtrack.  I’m sure Mom was fond of the tunes.

That record and console are now just memories (Or maybe not.  That’s another long story that won’t be told right now). But old music never dies.  

The two last qualities of life that Mom has been able to at least partially enjoy are food and music.  Her appetite remained healthy until just recently, even with pureed selections filling the menu. But with that in the past, the last vestige is music.  One can’t be sure how much is getting through, but while music is playing, she breathes easier.

The Hospice Music Therapist brought his guitar to play and sing for Mom.  He sat in the chair next to her bed, and asked, “What do you think she would like to hear?”

“Maybe something from South Pacific,” I said.  “She likes that.”

“Hmmm...How about ‘Some Enchanted Evening,’?”

“That should work!”

The Therapist launched into the familiar tune.  “Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger….”

He provided a very soothing and melodic rendition.  But the lovely finish caught me by surprise. At the last word, seeing my mother lying in bed so close to the point of departure was more than I could bear.  I walked out of the room to unsuccessfully manage my emotions.

“Never...let...her...go...”  

Sometimes, you have no choice.