Fears I’m getting curmudgeonly
Yesterday, I was having a phone conversation with my son as he was waiting in the car while his sister was being dropped off at gymnastics. He was all excited that Christmas music was playing on the radio station, and he was making me listen to various different tunes, proclaiming that we should definitely open Christmas gifts to the Christmas classic Sleigh Ride (which brings back endless memories of mediocre jr and sr high school band/orchestra rehearsals of said classic: shudders).
I was decidedly NOT feeling as thrilled as my son was at the prospect of the holidays encroaching upon us. As I later drove over to join my Education for Ministry group (EfM), more tunes were on, and quite frankly, they were irritating me.
Me…the adult who was the child who listened to warbley 8-tracks of Johnny Matthis and Andy Williams Christmas tunes all year long, whose blue moods could easily be lifted by a cheerful Christmas ditty or touched by sappy, maudlin Christmas tunes. Who always got a “magical” feeling in the depths of my soul at the sound of Christmas music – now…not so much.
How sad that this little piece of magic is eluding me.
It official – 40 is the year I’m getting curmudgeonly.
Light A Candle
Episcopalifem 
It is just being 40 – it all comes back to you when you get to 60
LOL
Great…contemplates curmudgeonly next 20 years….LMAO
But, but, but….
Eileen, it’s not Christmas! It’s not even ADVENT yet, for God’s sake!!!
Two major radio stations in Charlotte started playing Christmas songs 24/7 BEFORE HALLOWEEN. I drive in silence now.
What’s the next stage beyond “curmudgeon”? Because I am so totally there….
I hear ya, Doxy.
Hearing this music makes me realize:
How behind I am.
How little money I have.
How many big ticket items my kids want.
How little of Jesus is in Christmas.
How commercial it is.
How bought in I am to all that commercialism.
Disgusting.
Time to start listening to your own music (if you have an iPod, even a shuffle 1 GB would spare you the worst)… as for dealing with the kids who want big ticket stuff, that’s hard.
Sleigh Ride comes to us from Leroy Anderson, who also gave us the Syncopated clock, The Typewriter, Dizzy Fingers, and more.
Nobody knows who he was any more, but my mother taught piano and organ, and she had sheet music of all his songs, and maybe once every year or two, they’d broadcast a Boston Pops concert on television, which would always feature a lot of LeRoy Anderson’s music, until he died in 1975.
Oh, my goodness (that being a polite substitution for the saltier phrase I am thinking), that’s a long time ago. That means I must be old. How could that be? I swear I was 14, only a couple of days ago.
In any case, if you go to leroyanderson.com, his family has all his biggest hits up so that you can hear them, or you can buy an CD of his music. I go there every so often and click on some music. It’s not the same, hearing that recording instead of my mother’s wonderful renditions on the piano, but it’s a way of telling his family that he hasn’t been forgotten, and of bringing back just a tad of my mother, for a few minutes.
Gpd has a sense of humor, there’s no doubt about it, but these practical jokes he plays on us, making us old before we’re ready, and taking away those we love, sometimes, they aren’t all that funny.
Give your kids an extra hug apiece, for me. You’ll be gone, just a few minutes from now, and they need to stock up on your hugs to keep themselves warm in the remaining few minutes of their lives.
Consider it done Harl – extra hugs disseminated!
Oh, I hate it when people start celebrating the church seasons too early. And you, Fluffysnuggles, are the worst offender. You should know that you MUST NEVER complain about Christmas until the first day of Advent.
What is the world coming to?
So I should suffer in silence alone, eh? I think NOT.
If I am offended by this, so shall you all be offended…especially YOU J+, who I know well is even more irked than I by the whole thing.
Yes. But my point is that the Church has traditionally refrained from complaining about how awful Christmas has become until Advent Sunday. If we start complaining about Christmas in the middle of November the next thing you know, we’ll be complaining about the Easter Bunny in the middle of August. November is the time when we should be complaining about how trendy Advent carol services have become.
I became curmudgeonly at about age six. I don’t even like Christmas music during Christmas. And I’ll tell you what you can do with those bells the Salvation Army soldiers ring. There’s a place you can put those, see…