Me Me Me

“Christmas records” — nobody calls them that anymore. Only old fogies like me still think of holiday recordings as LPs with Andy Williams or Nat King Cole sitting in the snow on the cover. When I was little, we bought a Christmas compilation record every year put out by a tire company (Firestone?) that had Steve and Eydie singing “Let It Snow” alongside Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” Neither of those couples stayed together, by the way, but they sure could sing a nice Christmas duet.

Anyway, the point is that Thanksgiving has arrived, which means that I get to listen to Christmas music for the next month. ONLY Christmas music. Since the Hendersons are 21st century people, my vast collection of Christmas records has been loaded onto our nifty Bose sound system, and I can scroll down to find my favorites, such as Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, Amy Grant, Clay Aiken (don’t laugh! it’s great!) and last year’s obsession, Mr. Josh Groban. I try to buy a new Christmas record every year. Some fall flat (sorry, James Taylor) and some become instant faves (Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers). I also have old-school compilations cadged from the Firestone era and newer ones put out by Starbucks and Old Navy. I am a fanatic. Classics? Messiah? Sometimes. But nothing beats a great rendition of “Silver Bells.”

After all these years of being force-fed holiday ditties for an entire month, my kids are well-versed in the Christmas oeuvre and don’t mind having “Chestnuts roasting” as background noise when they’re home. The only problem is that the Bose system memorizes your “favorites” and spits them back at you randomly for the rest of the year. You have to teach it not to revert to Christmas mode, which takes at least six months, and I feel sad every time it tries to play a holiday song for me. “Not yet,” I tell it. “We can’t start until Thanksgiving.”

Tommy Smothers at the Emmys? Oh my gosh. When I was little, I memorized every routine on every Smothers Brothers comedy album. My late father got my Smothers Brothers obsession started, and I realize now that Tom and Dick Smothers were a huge influence in my growing up to be a liberal. On the surface, their comedy was based on sibling rivalry (exotic to me, as an only child) with Tommy the slightly idiotic, out-of-it brother whining about how “mom always liked you best.” But they were also old-school folkies with a strong progressive bent, which became increasingly obvious on their landmark variety series in the late 60s. There was something about them that I just adored, and tonight, seeing them looking exactly the same, with Tommy daring to speak out about the utter ignorance in American politics at this scary moment in time…it made me very, VERY happy. YES! Tell the truth, Tommy! To see my old hero introduced by the fabulous Steve Martin (his novels? genius), and then to see adorable Josh Groban sing a nutty medley of TV theme songs followed by the cast of Laugh-In (another late-60s obsession) made me think that there might be a glimmer of hope for a sane life on planet Earth after November 4.