Guilty holiday pleasures...

I've always enjoyed parodies and comedic songs, starting with Weird Al Yankovic in junior high (I about lost it the first time I heard "Eat It"), and in college I was exposed to Dr. Demento - great stuff! So one year while I was out Christmas shopping and saw his Christmas CD, I just *had* to get it.

From classic pieces like Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$" and Spike Jones "All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth", to newer ones like "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" and Weird Al's "Christmas At Ground Zero", the album was hilarious, and a great stress reliever to boot. Sometime after that I heard about Bob Rivers Twisted Christmas album. For several years, those two albums would get a decent amount of play every holiday season...sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of the commercialism and hassle of the season.

A couple years ago, I discovered that Bob Rivers had multiple Christmas albums out, so I picked them up. It's amazing what a mind can do under holiday stress. There are, as with any album, some songs I don't care all that much for, but there are others that are absolute screams. "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire", off the album of that name, is practically a must hear for anyone who is heartily sick of repeated bombardment of the Chipmunk Christmas Song, and "Who Put the Stump?", while a bit rude, is a great sendup of the joke of how the angel got on top of the tree.

The album I'm currently listening to is I Am Santa Claus. The title song is set to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" - it opens with a voice growing "I...am....Santa Claus!". Another one I like is "O Little Town of Bethlehem", which has the original hymn lyrics, but sung to "The House of the Rising Sun". On amazon, you can listen to clips from any of the above albums, if you're interested.

That's not to say I listen to nothing but comedy albums at Christmas - far from it. Our Christmas repertoire includes an extensive collection of classical pieces, including Handel's Messiah, traditional hymns (both sung and instrumental), medieval/renaissance, as well as more modern Christmas songs such as David Bowie's "Little Drummer Boy". Lots of beautiful music to choose from.

But sometimes you just have to laugh and not take things so seriously. Especially in the frenetic holiday preparation season...