Analysis of the mundane

Here's a fantastic line from a terrible trailer for a terrible movie, P.S.: I Love You:

"He gave her the gift of a life without him."

Let that one roll over your tongue for a bit before swallowing it.

Okay, moving on:

It's Christmas Time, which means that, right now, all across the country, thousands of radio stations have switched from their usual "Golden Oldies" playlists to their "Holiday Music" playlist. Now, popular Christmas music (which is different from Traditional Christmas music, and worse by far) only consists of a selection of songs. for example:

Frosty The Snowman
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Baby
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Jingle Bell Rock
Silver Bells
Mistletoe and Holly
The Christmas Song
I'll Be Home For Christmas
White Christmas
Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

If you're lucky they'll throw in "Joy To The World" or that awful, terrible, no good very bad Barenaked Ladies rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" (I swear to god they have like seven competing rhythms in there), but mostly it's those thirteen and maybe a couple I forgot. Nonstop. For the entire month of December. And mostly Celine Dion, Dean Martin, and Diana (eww) Krall. But the song that I hate most is the last one on the list. It's a terrible song. And I will show you why, verse-by-verse.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree
at the Christmas party hop.
Mistletoe hung where you can see
ev'ry couple tries to stop.

First of all, I have never seen a Christmas Tree that you can rock "around". Christmas trees usually go in the corner of the room, where the pine needles can be contained and people don't have to walk around a large spiky thing every time they wander through the living room. Secondly, isn't a "hop" just a type of party? Isn't that redundantly repetitive? And I always got the image of couples fighting each other to get under the mistletoe, because they just don't know where else to make out.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree,
let the Christmas spirit ring.
Later we'll have some pumpkin pie
and we'll do some caroling.

You know what? Rockin' has nothing to do with caroling or eating pumpkin pie. Rockin' has to do with punching things and gettin' sexy. Unless Bing Crosby was a rock star...yeah, this sounds like the most boring "rock" event ever thought into existence.

You will get a sentimental feeling
when you hear voices singing
"Let's be jolly,
Deck the halls with boughs of holly."

No, I will get a miserable feeling when I hear people forgetting the right words to "Deck The Halls". Please don't come caroling to my house.

Rockin' around the Christmas Tree.
Have a happy holiday.
Ev'ryone dancing merrily
in the new old fashioned way.

Yes! We rock so merrily! And the "new old fashioned way"? Do you mean "retro"? The song was written in 1958. The only "old fashioned ways" that they had were the Charleston, the Waltz, and those weird Jane Austen Movie Regency dances. So is it just a weird mash-up of the three that itself is totally new? Is that the way they danced at sock hops? I've seen Grease. That didn't look like a waltz to me.