Fa-La-La-La-La

I recently learned a very important lesson. Christmas is not about Santa Claus. It's not about the gifts. It's not about candy canes, tinsel, and, though it pains me to admit it, not even about eggnog.

It's about Jesus.

I'm sorry, did I say Jesus? I meant carols. Christmas is about Christmas songs. Everyone loves singing a good Christmas tune. Even Jewish people. At the risk of turning this blog entirely anti-Semitic, most Jewish people I know love Christmas songs. Sure, Hanukkah has the advantage of offering a celebration for eight nights, but what's the point of extending the party when there's only one very repetitive song ("Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel")?

I would compare the love of traditional Christmas songs to a fondness for show tunes, but much less threatening. It's far less emasculating to hum a tune under the guise of "doing it for Jesus" than a passion for musical theater. Well, that is if you're willing to ignore the obvious queer subtext in "Deck the Halls" and "The Little Drummer Boy."

A few weeks ago at the last big Margarita Monday, which reached about 30 people with the temperature not much higher than that number, Andrew and I began performing our favorite holiday tunes. Dare I say, we made for some rather impressive harmonies. Bing Crosby had nothing on our rendition of "White Christmas." If he weren't already deceased, he would immediately keel over from embarrassment (or perhaps alcohol poisoning given our location) at how much better we performed his supposed classic.

To illustrate my earlier point, it's worth noting that Andrew is Jewish. Also, he is not stinky. (I'm starting to suspect that I mixed up Jewish people with "stinky homeless", which, you know, common mistake.) Together we were like Ebony and Ivory. Or Yarmulke and Santa Hat, as the case may be. Later, Allison lent her voice, making our songs all the more joyful. I'm not even sure what religion Allison subscribes to, but being a Caucasian Texan, I think it's safe to assume Kwanzaa is amongst her December activities. The point is that we had a whole group of people of different faiths all able to come together to happily sing the praises of Jesus. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that that's the vision George W. Bush has for America.

Church on Christmas Eve morning was terrific if for no other reason than all of the Christmas music. The minister even took requests! Every request was a hit, except for the one my mom asked for on behalf of my dad. No one had heard of that song before, thus making it lame. The whole time, I belted, giving each song my all. I was concerned once I realized that I was essentially singing into the ear of the person sitting in the pew in front of me, but I wasn't going to let it stop me. During the "giving thanks" time during the sermon (I thought that was a month ago), the person asked for thanks for all of the wonderful music during the service. Since I was the one ey heard most clearly, I took it as a nice compliment. (Not as nice as $250, though.)

This morning, my Jewish aunt received a Bette Midler Christmas CD in her stocking. She quickly popped it in the stereo, explaining, "It's Christmas music for you, and she's Jewish for me." Sounds pretty harmonious to me.