Do you hear what I hear?

The holidays, continued.

Amazing isn’t it? This little season from Thanksgiving ‘til December 25th (Christmas, if you will) has its very own segment of the entertainment industry. The music alone is staggering. In an industry that has been suffering for several years this little season can still generate big piles of cash. Just about everyone manages to eek out a holiday song or re-make a well-known holiday song and someone will buy it. I admit that I am a blatant holiday music whore. I’ll listen to it all no matter how cringe-worthy; matter of fact the more cringe-worthy the better.

There are touching songs and raunchy songs and funny songs. There are songs about snow and songs about no snow. Songs about love and joy and Santa and toys. Certainly there are songs associated with other seasons. Sure there are songs we hear that make us think of a particular Summer, but Summer songs aren’t really specific to Summer, they’re just songs that happen to get played a lot during a particular Summer. They don’t even come back around every year they just fade away from a current song to a heritage classic and then a golden oldie.

Not Christmas tunes though, nope. They come back around every single year with a few (hundred) to add to the heap. Let’s face it, that Bing Crosby version of White Christmas sounds as good today as it did when ol’ Der Bingle was still alive and being a crappy father and husband while putting on the image of the all ‘round great guy.

Speaking of snow…we were speaking snow, right? Notice that most or many of the holiday songs are focused on something to do with snow? All that hearkens back to the origins of the Yule season up in those Nordic and Germanic countries where snow in December and January would be pretty common. Basically holiday music disregards anyone living south of the snow line as well as south of the equator . Good ol’ Santa in his many guises is definitely dressed for some wintery weather. You don’t see Santa in a nice pair of cargo shorts and a Summer shirt. Snow, it’s all about snow. It’s about building snowmen and riding in horse drawn sleighs over the river and through the woods.

So yeah, there’s an entire sub-music industry built around one day of the year and a season that spans no more than four weeks. It’s shocking, fun in many ways but shocking that so much (mostly bad) music can come out of this season.

I admit that I have a huge collection of holiday music but I’ve kinda slacked off in recent years, I think the redundancy of it all made me lapse into bored apathy.

Holiday movies and specials are another sub-industry unique to this season. There aren’t nearly as many holiday specials on TV as there were when I was a kid. When I was a kid there were tons of variety show style holiday specials. Andy Williams had one, The Smothers Brothers, Bing Crosby used to ALWAYS have a holiday special, that’s where that awesome version of Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie came from. Now holiday TV programming is more along the lines of truly awful holiday movies primarily focused on a variation of “A Christmas Carol”. To mix things up a little there are the standard tearjerkers with touching endings; single moms who meet the love of their life where they least expect it or families reunited by the magic of the Christmas spirit.

Just like with the music, the TV shows are completely unrealistic and inappropriate at any other time of year. No one would believe that you could handcuff a guy you were waiting on in a luncheonette and end up marrying him by the end of the two hour movie (“Holiday in Handcuffs” complete with Mario Lopez AND his dimples) but in this season clearly ANYTHING is possible. I can’t get enough. It makes Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies the rest of the year pale by comparison.

Have ya noticed that they seem to recycle the same actors through most of the awful holiday flicks? There’s a crop of actors and actresses, C, maybe D listers who seem to show up over and over again in the same roles with different names and backdrops. It’s usually actors on their way back down the food chain, hey at least they’re working as actors and not waiting tables (I suppose).

When I was young television choices were limited to the major networks and a few peripheral channels so it did limit the outlets for holiday programming. With cable and satellite TV those limits have been blown out of the water. Now there are food and style networks that have their very own special holiday offerings with their very own level of awesomeness. The Food Network has all kinds of tips and tricks for holiday foods offering hours of overeating inspiring programming. HGTV and Style offer ways to dress up yourself or your home to reflect those fabulous holiday myths celebrated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By now you must be wondering if I’m for or against this glut of weirdly bad entertainment options four weeks at the end of every year. I’ll end that speculation right now. LOVE THEM. Of course the only reason I love them is because they are weirdly bad and maybe even because they are a tad out of reach. You’re usually not treated to a heavy dose of Christmas movies in March so just the fact that I have to wait for them makes them just that much more desirable.

Now, back to watching some holiday decorating tips on HGTV.