The Trouble with Trebles  

Christmas music: lilting refrain, or knife to the vein? As a kid, I remember Mom and Dad pulling out all the crackly records and stacking them on the multi-pay spindle. Each record would drop, playing songs about Santa and the reindeer, Frosty and the children, Jesus and the chipmunks.

I loved it. The songs were pop greats. Maybe it's real, or maybe they sucked. It's just nostalgia vines intertwining the voices of Perry Como, Julie Andrews, and Johnny Mathis to happy Christmases past. My ghosts of Christmas past.

I turned on the radio today, thinking I could recapture my holiday spirit by ringing in the carols. My Grandmother's name is Carol, but I wasn't going to call her. The music would have to do. Sorry Christmas is the time for exchanging gifts and really bad jokes, get used to it. Better you start with me, than be shocked by something said by Uncle Frank over Christmas Ham. You don't want the kids to remember this as the Christmas Mommy forked Frank in the forehead.

So, back to the music. Christmas music. I gotta tell ya, I'm feeling old, because these tracks of Christmas present are horrible! These cows are crashing the china shop of my youth! Right now, I'm suffering through Kelly Clarkson doing "O Holy Night." No Kelly, it's not a holy night. Not while you're doing that to it!

It's not that she can't sing; she can. She makes sure we know it too, by hitting every note in her range. If the treble clef was a musical cliff, her voice would be bouncing off of each eighth note on it's way down, and miraculously rebounding back to middle C before plummeting to tranquil silence. If only that were the end. She climbs back for more, lucky me. Is that what she learned from American Idol? Keep it simple, Simon!

"Simon!"

Ok, maybe it's not all his fault. Celine Dion murdered "The Christmas Song." Then again if your name isn't Nat King Cole, don't even bother trying to sing it. I know, I sound like a traditional Christmas snob, but why? Why ruin a good song? What makes turning Rudolph into a yodel a good idea?

Maybe I'm just bitter. I want things the way they were. If the rest of my year has to be mired in the muck of divorce, I want my freakin' Norman Rockwell fluffy white Christmas, and bring me Bing Crosby too! (Well, really just his music—no need to dig him up, it is Christmas…) I've earned it. I want snow, I want my Santa, and I want my carols! Gimme peace on earth! Gimme holly jolly! Gimme Sarah McLachlan all ribboned and bowed under my tree! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Ok, I'm better now. Once this Christmas is over, I'll have one divorced Holiday under my belt; I'll be able to look forward to Christmases future. I just hope the singing gets better.