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cblj_backup) wrote2005-12-21 12:03 pm
cblj_backup) wrote2005-12-21 12:03 pm
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You know what I'd like to read? A history of Christmas.
Not the roots of Christmas, I'm well aware of those both Christian and Pre-Christian, but rather a history of Christmas as it is now. The pop ideal, if you will, as a sort of bizarre semi-secularised holiday rife with ideals and expected traditions. (Yes, this goes back to my Samx rebellion). Not to accuse people of not celebrating the spirit or anything; I know many people view Christmas in a deeply religious light, but you cannot deny that in this society there are certain mass social rules/trends regarding it, and I'm intrigued by where they came from.
I suspect that modern Christmas sort of began its development with Dickens and I do know that the Coca Cola Santa played a large part, but I wonder if some sociologist or anthropologist or historian has done a study on why Christmas is the way it is now -- at least in America. For example, why the holiday lights? Yes, they hearken back to the solar festivals, but between "solar festival" and "electricity" there's what, about 1100 years? Why the Gathering Together With Family? Up until a few generations ago, most extended families lived under one roof anyway, so the compulsion wouldn't have existed. Would it? I have no clue. What's the deal with giving fruitcakes and when did fruitcakes garner such terrible social stigma? I quite like fruitcake, at least the kind they make in Corsicana.
This came up mainly because I begin to see musicians trying to write "christmas classics" that will end up in the standard holiday ouevre in the way that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and White Christmas are -- this year's contribution is "The Christmas Shoes", an unbearably absurd paean to once-a-year-charity and one of the few songs which will make my family actively demand a change of radio station. The Muppets tried for one years ago with "We'll Be Together at Christmas" which was the theme for A Christmas Toy and part of the medly at the end of A Muppet Family Christmas. Now, granted, I can sing the song from heart and recognise it instantly, but it's not exactly a big 'do on the radio stations.
The problem with modern "christmas classics" is that they read rather ridiculously to most people. Don't tell me you don't snigger when Clay Aiken sings about the spirit of Christmas. And yet, songs that were the equivalent of pop-music for their day, such as White Christmas (written by Irving Berlin for the film Holiday Inn and then used as the theme for White Christmas, another song about innkeeping) are considered basic standards for the holiday season. People with a little more performative dignity than general, such as Michael Buble, tend to stick to covers of these songs rather than attempting to write new ones, because they know that these austere old classics will sell just as well and sound less silly.
But why are these songs considered the classics, to us? Granted, of course, we also include "Stille Nacht" and "We Three Kings" which are older than this past century, but those get a lot less airtime on the Christmas Stations and in Christmas Albums than pop songs written in the 30s and 40s. My generation certainly has its own classic films
-- How the Grinch Stole Christmas, all the old Rankin-Bass stuff, Muppet Family Christmas -- but we acknowledge at the same time that these are made-for-tv movies and we revel in their absurdity a little. A few of them are shown on television every year, but not nearly with the same sort of hoopla and whooptedoo that It's A Wonderful Life gets -- and how many television shows have reworked that theme for their own holiday episode? Too many to count.
So I wonder what was going on in the past century-anna-half or so to create this shambling behemoth of a holiday that we all feel the need to live up to. That's all. Preferably with lots of colour plates of old vintage Christmas ads.
In other news, Mum had a fall while doing a parts-audit at a warehouse (she buys boards for a local microprocessor company) and hit her head on a shelf, so she came home for about two hours. She's fine -- not concussed as far as we can tell -- but she does have a shallow half-inch gash on the back of her head and she's sore all over from the adrenaline rush.
She's been working from home for the past two hours, and (as ever) I begin to wonder if she swears and talks to herself this much at work, because if so I can understand why her cube neighbour is always really cranky.
And she's now gone back to work -- a 40 minute drive -- because they'd make fun of her if she stayed home. I think she's utterly mad, but as with Bernard, there's no arguing with her when she's set her mind, and she only sets her mind firmly when her course of action is absolutely ridiculous.
And she wonders where her children get it from.
Not the roots of Christmas, I'm well aware of those both Christian and Pre-Christian, but rather a history of Christmas as it is now. The pop ideal, if you will, as a sort of bizarre semi-secularised holiday rife with ideals and expected traditions. (Yes, this goes back to my Samx rebellion). Not to accuse people of not celebrating the spirit or anything; I know many people view Christmas in a deeply religious light, but you cannot deny that in this society there are certain mass social rules/trends regarding it, and I'm intrigued by where they came from.
I suspect that modern Christmas sort of began its development with Dickens and I do know that the Coca Cola Santa played a large part, but I wonder if some sociologist or anthropologist or historian has done a study on why Christmas is the way it is now -- at least in America. For example, why the holiday lights? Yes, they hearken back to the solar festivals, but between "solar festival" and "electricity" there's what, about 1100 years? Why the Gathering Together With Family? Up until a few generations ago, most extended families lived under one roof anyway, so the compulsion wouldn't have existed. Would it? I have no clue. What's the deal with giving fruitcakes and when did fruitcakes garner such terrible social stigma? I quite like fruitcake, at least the kind they make in Corsicana.
This came up mainly because I begin to see musicians trying to write "christmas classics" that will end up in the standard holiday ouevre in the way that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and White Christmas are -- this year's contribution is "The Christmas Shoes", an unbearably absurd paean to once-a-year-charity and one of the few songs which will make my family actively demand a change of radio station. The Muppets tried for one years ago with "We'll Be Together at Christmas" which was the theme for A Christmas Toy and part of the medly at the end of A Muppet Family Christmas. Now, granted, I can sing the song from heart and recognise it instantly, but it's not exactly a big 'do on the radio stations.
The problem with modern "christmas classics" is that they read rather ridiculously to most people. Don't tell me you don't snigger when Clay Aiken sings about the spirit of Christmas. And yet, songs that were the equivalent of pop-music for their day, such as White Christmas (written by Irving Berlin for the film Holiday Inn and then used as the theme for White Christmas, another song about innkeeping) are considered basic standards for the holiday season. People with a little more performative dignity than general, such as Michael Buble, tend to stick to covers of these songs rather than attempting to write new ones, because they know that these austere old classics will sell just as well and sound less silly.
But why are these songs considered the classics, to us? Granted, of course, we also include "Stille Nacht" and "We Three Kings" which are older than this past century, but those get a lot less airtime on the Christmas Stations and in Christmas Albums than pop songs written in the 30s and 40s. My generation certainly has its own classic films
-- How the Grinch Stole Christmas, all the old Rankin-Bass stuff, Muppet Family Christmas -- but we acknowledge at the same time that these are made-for-tv movies and we revel in their absurdity a little. A few of them are shown on television every year, but not nearly with the same sort of hoopla and whooptedoo that It's A Wonderful Life gets -- and how many television shows have reworked that theme for their own holiday episode? Too many to count.
So I wonder what was going on in the past century-anna-half or so to create this shambling behemoth of a holiday that we all feel the need to live up to. That's all. Preferably with lots of colour plates of old vintage Christmas ads.
In other news, Mum had a fall while doing a parts-audit at a warehouse (she buys boards for a local microprocessor company) and hit her head on a shelf, so she came home for about two hours. She's fine -- not concussed as far as we can tell -- but she does have a shallow half-inch gash on the back of her head and she's sore all over from the adrenaline rush.
She's been working from home for the past two hours, and (as ever) I begin to wonder if she swears and talks to herself this much at work, because if so I can understand why her cube neighbour is always really cranky.
And she's now gone back to work -- a 40 minute drive -- because they'd make fun of her if she stayed home. I think she's utterly mad, but as with Bernard, there's no arguing with her when she's set her mind, and she only sets her mind firmly when her course of action is absolutely ridiculous.
And she wonders where her children get it from.