LongRoadBob
Cleared for Takeoff
As most of us, I loved Christmas as a kid. Not just the excitement of anticipating presents, but the whole thing, Bing Crosby singing about white Christmas, little drummer boy, etc. favorite thing of all was mom, dad, and I would take the car around neighborhoods and look at the different Christmas light decorations on many houses. By today’s standard, we’re pretty lame, but I thought they were perfect. We also had like most folk, not that many presents under the tree. But more than enough.
On my own at a pretty young age, it was still a magic time.
Later on, barely celebrated it at all, but still felt the melancholy that comes with it.
Moved to Norway in the early eighties. Had to learn to get used to their variations on Xmas. Specially their food (lots of greasey sausages, ribs with bacon grind on it,etc). The year I kinda was getting to like it, my wife pretty much ruined it a bit by the end of the meal giving me something “you might not like it but try it”, on a little plate after I was full. Rotten fish (Rakk fisk) that smelled terrible and taste worse.
But after some years, some of the traditions here are getting to me. They always run the same tv programs that all Norwegians grew up with and therefore have to watch, every year. A Disney program with the same cavalcade of Donald Duck, two chipmunks, goofy and Mickey on a trip with a mobile home, etc, all from the fifties or so. Then a Hungarian version of “Cinderella” (which was actually kinda cool the first ten times, as it is much closer the the Brothers Grimm version, and acted instead of animated), and then weirdest of all, a vaudeville sketch from England, of a butler to a lonely rich matron, who sets a table...get this, on New Years Eve, not Xmas, for imaginary guests (that we are led to believe are dead now, old suitors to the matron) where the butler has to go around the table after each course, and drink a shot for each of the “guests” a “cheers” to her and gets more and more drunk. Then they go upstairs for hanky panky...it’s very weird.
found it...this
Anyway, the Xmas ritual here is starting to seem so narrow and rigid it’s getting to me.
It’s a lot more than having to watch “home alone” or “it’s a wonderful life”.
But what really gets me these days is the Christmas music. Oh my god. Every musician wants to get a Christmas song in the rotation, get in on the cash cow and it shows by the dreck that rotates now on virtually every radio station. At the same time, it seems like the worst songs are being played every fifteen minutes and that there are a ton of tired pop versions of standards or, that Irish one is going to break me I know one day.
Since I’ve been here the last almost three decades, I don’t know if it’s changed a lot in the US, but suspect not as rigid for everyone. Here they can tend to be in lock step on Xmas.
Bah....Humbug. I think the US does this better.
On my own at a pretty young age, it was still a magic time.
Later on, barely celebrated it at all, but still felt the melancholy that comes with it.
Moved to Norway in the early eighties. Had to learn to get used to their variations on Xmas. Specially their food (lots of greasey sausages, ribs with bacon grind on it,etc). The year I kinda was getting to like it, my wife pretty much ruined it a bit by the end of the meal giving me something “you might not like it but try it”, on a little plate after I was full. Rotten fish (Rakk fisk) that smelled terrible and taste worse.
But after some years, some of the traditions here are getting to me. They always run the same tv programs that all Norwegians grew up with and therefore have to watch, every year. A Disney program with the same cavalcade of Donald Duck, two chipmunks, goofy and Mickey on a trip with a mobile home, etc, all from the fifties or so. Then a Hungarian version of “Cinderella” (which was actually kinda cool the first ten times, as it is much closer the the Brothers Grimm version, and acted instead of animated), and then weirdest of all, a vaudeville sketch from England, of a butler to a lonely rich matron, who sets a table...get this, on New Years Eve, not Xmas, for imaginary guests (that we are led to believe are dead now, old suitors to the matron) where the butler has to go around the table after each course, and drink a shot for each of the “guests” a “cheers” to her and gets more and more drunk. Then they go upstairs for hanky panky...it’s very weird.
found it...this
Anyway, the Xmas ritual here is starting to seem so narrow and rigid it’s getting to me.
It’s a lot more than having to watch “home alone” or “it’s a wonderful life”.
But what really gets me these days is the Christmas music. Oh my god. Every musician wants to get a Christmas song in the rotation, get in on the cash cow and it shows by the dreck that rotates now on virtually every radio station. At the same time, it seems like the worst songs are being played every fifteen minutes and that there are a ton of tired pop versions of standards or, that Irish one is going to break me I know one day.
Since I’ve been here the last almost three decades, I don’t know if it’s changed a lot in the US, but suspect not as rigid for everyone. Here they can tend to be in lock step on Xmas.
Bah....Humbug. I think the US does this better.
