Tis the season

With Christmas (yes, that's right, Christmas, not the Holiday Season, Festivus, or whatever - as Jack Donaghy proclaimed in last year's Christmas card, 'Happy Holidays...is what terrorists say.  Merry Christmas!') nigh upon us, the sights and sounds of the season are all around us.  Well, most of the sights.  We have no snow here.  In a bizarre twist, that She-Devil called Mother Nature has called of her snow demons and we are looking at the first brown Christmas in five years.  There's something wrong about that.  The bigger wrong is the destruction that awaits us once the aforementioned she-beast unleashes her winter fury upon us.  I don't know what she's waiting for but it concerns me.

Then there are the sounds.  The sounds of Christmas erupted here right after Halloween, I think.  It seems like that's when one of the local radio stations went "All Christmas Music!  All the time!" and I've been wanting to drive a blunt instrument through my ears ever since.  I'm not a big fan of Christmas music, particularly the treacle that is on the radio non-stop right now.  It is, in a word, awful.  I don't want to hear the latest batch of Disney automatons singing "Do They Know It's Christmastime?" ever again (seriously, it's the only non-traditional Christmas song that I like) nor do I need to hear anything from the "Glee" kids (and by kids, I mean 30 year olds with limited acting skills and the ability to sync well with an Auto-tune machine) about Christmas.

So for me, tis the season to enjoy the original "Do They Know It's Christmastime?" and Handel's Messiah.  Now that is exquisite Christmas music.  It fills me with the spirit of the season each and every time I hear it.  It's brilliant and beautiful.  I shared this "flash mob" version of it last year and it's worth sharing again.  Here you go:

And for another Christmas gem, read this article about the brilliant "30 Rock" Christmas episodes over the years.  They are awesome.  Any Christmas episode that can give us one of the best lines ever written ('Mother, there are terrorist cells more nurturing than you.') simply can't be wrong.  It beats watching little Cindy Brady lisp her way up to Santa to ask for Mommy's voice back.  Who's with me?