No More Christmas Songs, Please

I'm not overly fond of Christmas music. It's played almost nonstop for the month before Christmas, and most of it is pretty dreadful. As much as I love Brenda Lee (and even Hall & Oates), I never want to hear "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" again. And how many different singers come out with Christmas albums each year? How many versions of "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" do we need nowadays?

However, there are a couple of songs that still have the power to make me feel a bit nostalgic (yes, even me). One is "White Christmas." Unlike almost everyone else, though, I like the version with the original lyrics. Most singers don't do that version because, in their minds, the words limit the appeal of the song. However, a few people besides Bing Crosby (most notably for me, Barbra Streisand) have stuck to what Irving Berlin originally had in mind:

The sun is shining.
The grass is green.
The orange and palm trees sway.
I've never seen such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the 24th,
And I am longing to be up north.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write.
May your days be merry and bright,
And may all your Christmases be white.

What I like about the original lyrics, that first stanza in particular, is the image of an outsider, someone who's not a native of California, who's looking around and seeing just how unlike the pictures of Christmas the Southern California region tends to be this time of year. We won't have snow here, and it probably won't even be cold (although the wind is helping in that respect tonight). But we can remember how it was when we lived elsewhere, some place that had snow this time of year. To fully appreciate the first stanza, you need to be from somewhere else, somewhere very much unlike Beverly Hills or Los Angeles. You need to be a stranger here.

It didn't always snow in Mississippi at Christmas time, and I'm not overly fond of the cold anyway. However, when I hear the full version of "White Christmas," I still think of those days of big overly decorated trees and lots of presents and the family making a lot of noise. I don't think it's possible to recreate those times now. Most of the time my family just gets on my nerves when I visit them during the holidays, and I can't wait to get to my home here in California. It certainly won't be a white Christmas for me this year, but the memories are still there to comfort me and keep me warm anyway.