When December rolls around, the
music in my house turns to holiday tunes morning, noon and night.
Feliz
Navidad? Love it.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree? You bet.
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer? One of our favorites.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree? You bet.
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer? One of our favorites.
Which brings me to the subject of
this blog. My Favorite Things.
We’re big fans of “The Sound Of
Music” and even the song, My Favorite
Things. But who decided that this
was a Christmas song?!? I mean,
really. I’d like to meet him or her.
This started off as a joke a few
years ago with my wife and kids. Anytime
My Favorite Things would play during
the month of December, one of us was bound to retort – “That’s not a Christmas
song!”
But now it has ceased to be
funny. If that song plays during the
holidays, we change the channel. It has
nothing to do with Christmas.
I took to the internet in my efforts
to understand how this perfectly lovely song was shoe-horned into becoming a
Christmas song. The best I could find on
Wikipedia was that the “wintertime imagery of the lyrics has made My Favorite Things a popular selection
during the Christmas Holiday season.”
Thanks, Wikipedia. That was
helpful.
To my surprise, I learned that
since 1964, My Favorite Things has
been recorded on 34 different Christmas albums by artists as wide-ranging as
Diana Ross & The Supremes, Andy Williams, Barbra Streisand, Herb Alpert,
Kenny Rogers, Luther Vandross, Chicago, Glee and Mary K. Blige. No wonder it is virtually impossible to avoid
the 34 versions of My Favorite Things
during the holidays.
How about if we examine the lyrics:
Raindrops
on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
OK. First verse down. Raindrops, roses, kittens? None of these say “holidays” to me. They don’t even say “winter”. The “packages”
aren’t Christmas gifts – they’re in brown paper, not festive wrapping. The only thing remotely wintery is a
reference to some mittens. I’m not
feeling it. Are you?
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Let’s see if there’s anything in
the second verse we can cling to. Apple
streudel? Schnitzel? The descriptions
sure are making me hungry, but they don’t conjure any holiday images for
me. Doorbells? I must admit I don’t really get that
one. OK, at least there’s a reference to
“sleigh bells”. Maybe we’re on to
something.
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things
Third verse brings in girls in
white dresses. Don’t they say you shouldn’t
wear white after Labor Day?? Then the
verse mentions “snowflakes” and “silver white winters” -- but only in the
context of them melting into springs.
Couple that with the “raindrops” in the first verse and I’ve moved
straight through spring and into April showers.
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad
Do you get a lot of bee stings in
December? Didn’t think so. And do they make you feel all warm and
festive? I’m just saying.
So let’s recap: If you’re a “glass half full” kind of person,
you’ll count mittens, sleigh bells, snowflakes and winters in the “Of course
it’s a Christmas song, you idiot” category.
But you’d have to completely ignore the raindrops, roses, kittens, ponies,
geese, melting winters and those troublesome bees.
How about if we just agree to
disagree?
-- Frosty
-- Frosty
That is one of my all time favorite songs and NO, it is not a Christmas song! I always picture wither the scene from the movie (as you pictured it above) or else my son's 6th grade class performing it at their annual school play. I was THRILLED that his group did Sound of Music.
ReplyDelete(hello from a fellow Hollidailies participant!)
I love that song, but you're right, it's NOT a Christmas song. Not in the least.
ReplyDeleteI sing that song to my kids often. :) They know just about every song from The Sound of Music. I have often wondered why it's a Christmas song too! My parents had a very old LP Christmas album that I played all the time when I was a kid, and My Favorite Things was one of the songs on it. For years I thought it was a Christmas song until I saw the movie.
ReplyDelete