Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas music – I better like it, because I sing it constantly, a barely audible act of ventriloquism that makes people on the metro platform at U Street glance around, annoyed, and then slowly move away from me. What a great tradition!
But Christmas music teaches some very bad lessons. Now that I have a three year old son, this fact is amplified, and my Christmas spirit destruction tradition has taken on a whole new impetus – that of the teachable moment.
Take, for instance, the age old “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” This song simply reinforces behaviors we’ve been trying to positively reinforce OUT of our son for the past three years! Think about it: no please, no thank you, no “nice words”, just “bring me some figgy pudding and bring it right now!” The only saving grace in all of this is that I believe my son would be sorely disappointed in figgy pudding, and it serves him right! But it gets worse; the song ups the ante, going from demanding to threatening repercussions for non compliance – “we won’t go until we get some”. Who wrote this song? How unpleasant must have old-timey Christmases have been? So I tell our son, don’t let me catch you demanding figgy pudding this Christmas season because you just might get what you ask for!
There are a host of mildly upsetting or at least thoughtless Christmas song lyrics, such as “and if we’ve no place to go, let it snow let it snow let is snow” (what if you do have some place to go, like the hospital? Or work? How selfish!) and Good King Wenceslaus’s demand “bring me flesh and bring me wine” (oh where to begin – again, a total lack of “nice words” but of course he IS a King; so we are celebrating a non-elected autocrat who demands the choicest morsels for himself while his subjects get by on groat porridge or stewed acorns; and then of course there’s the vegan argument. Maybe that’s anachronistic – the song’s lyrics are not “Good King Wenceslaus looked out, on the Feast of Stephen; As the snow lay round about, he knew he wasn’t vegan.” But still!). Then there is Frosty’s magic hat that just happened to be blowing around some kid’s back yard. First I tell my son that magic is all humbug, and then I warn him about lice, fleas, and any number of communicable diseases that one may contract if one dabbles in picking up old, discarded clothing that one just happens to find lying about. He stares at me, but some day he’ll appreciate the pain I’m taking to educate him.
And then there’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” This song teaches you to be a sycophant: you must gain the favor of an authority figure in order to be loved. All the reindeer then loved him only after Santa asked him to guide his sleigh. This is a recipe for toddyism, an harbinger of future dictatorship, a decent into totalitarianism. I fear for my country, and I let my three year old know it. His only response is “Santa brings presents on his sleigh.” Despite that, I think I’m getting through.
Which brings up the most heinous of all carols – “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Really, this is a terrifying song. If someone were to tell you that an old, fat, bearded guy in a weird get-up was constantly watching you kid, even when he’s asleep, spying on him (How? Through a window? By slowly following him in his car as your kid walks down the street, a few feet behind? Creepy…) and taking notes, you’d call the police. But it’s okay to convince our kids that Santa does these things? I told my son that if he ever sees anyone like that following him around, to tell me at once. But he shouldn’t worry too much, because Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. I know I got through to him because he cried inconsolably. And that’s all I ask.
No comments:
Post a Comment