A Christmas sucker

OK, I admit it, I'm a sucker for Christmas. Especially Christmas music.

I've spent the past couple of weeks on eBay tracking down Christmas music I missed in the stores the first time around, and other things I just found on a LONG search. Among the gems: It's Finally Christmas, an out-of-print CD with indie artists covering standards and others; Blue Yule, a great Rhino Records collection of blues and R&B; and Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand, from Relient K, a smart-aleck punk band who released this Christmas CD in limited quantities last year. I have more I'm bidding on ... and I probably will continue to get more through eBay and in stores. On my wish list from this year: Chris Isaak's Christmas, the various artists CD Maybe This Christmas Tree, the Ultimate Christmas Cocktails collection which has one CD I don't already have, and Christmas Remixed, which has classic tracks remixed in different club styles ... it came out last year but it's still on my list.

Got to talking the other day about Christmas and what it means to me ... I'm talking about the secular aspect of it, not the religious. I'm a Christian, so obviously it's very important religiously, also. But I always loved the family and decorations and music of it. I have warm memories of Christmas as a kid. We almost always had a fake tree (which I loved!) that my mom would labor over to fill with lights and ornaments ... and I would lie underneath the tree and look up at the colors and lights and motion as it spun around (we had an early tree turntable). I would watch Charlie Brown and Rudolph and The Little Drummer Boy (my favorite at the time), and I even remember watching The Littlest Angel the first time it was broadcast. My parents would get the newest Christmas LPs that they sold at gas stations or department stores, compilations put together for them, just like Pottery Barn and Cost Plus have their own special CDs now. My favorite Christmas movies are still Miracle on 34th Street and the original It's A Wonderful Life (I remember my poor wife tracking down a black-and-white copy of the VCR for me one year because I refused to watch the colorized version!)

All this came up because we were in a Suncoast video store looking at the new stuff out, and noticed toys and stuff from A Christmas Story, that movie that's all about a kid in the 40s wanting a BB gun for Christmas. It's a favorite of a lot of people around here, but I can't stand it. And I think I finally understand why. It's a very cynical look at Christmas as the holiday of toy-giving. And that's probably why a lot of journalists love it: it's cynical. And that's why I don't. I still love the redemptive stories, the hopeful, the warm-hearted.

I'm a big softie, I know. I'm comfortable with that!

-Zube.