Confessions of a Dork: Holiday Edition

Songs leave such deliciously indelible imprints on us throughout our lives, reminding us of particular moments in time, or as time passes, general eras in our lives, whether happy or sad. They also mean different things to different people. That is why, for instance, while you may cringe and dive for the dial, I will never switch the radio station off of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” but will instead lamely listen to the entire thing for reasons best kept to myself, or why, at your friend’s wedding, you will go charging out to the dance floor in excitement when “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” comes on and I will simply see it as a chance to get another drink.

The imprint songs make on us is even more pronounced at Christmas, a time that I believe most people are more prone than other times of year to romanticize the past. The imprinting of Christmas carols into our brains starts at an early age, as noted in the last post. My family (my Mom excepted), for instance, is unnaturally attached to the Elvis Christmas Album, which my parents had on vinyl and which was a Christmas staple in our household in the Christmases of my youth. Two of my top 5 favorite Christmas songs of this and every year were birthed not in the distant past of my childhood, however, but instead were created in the relatively less-distant year of 1984, where they sat atop the English pop charts at numbers 1 and 2 that year at Christmas of my freshman year of college.

The first is “Do They Know Its Christmas?,” the English 80’s superstar compilation that was the most thrilling musical event of 1984 to my 18-year-old self. You should know, of course, that my 18-year old self wore parachute pants and had dubious judgment, as well as a fervent love of all of the seemingly brilliant music pouring forth from England at the time. Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Midge Ure of Ultravox wrote the song in a 24-hour period and 3-days later had gathered a whose who of pop talent of the moment in a London studio as "Band-Aid" for a day long recording session, including Sting, Simon LeBon, Bono, Boy George, George Michael, Paul Young, etc., as well as lesser lights such as Bananarama and Marilyn, who was not invited but showed up anyway. With the profits all going towards Ethiopian famine relief, it was the first in the stream of politically conscious charity songs that later spawned “We Are the World” in America and the Live-Aid concerts. For anyone interested, there is an interesting entry on the recording of the song at Wikipedia. Anyway, despite the sometimes ubiquitous presence of the song, especially that first year and the next one, I have never tired of it and my heart still gives a little jump each time I hear the opening chimes. I still have the 45 of the song given to me for Christmas in 1984 by my friend John (a dedicated reader of this blog!). Curiously, I learned just this week that Deanna had always thought they were egotistically singing in the song that “The greatest gift they’ll get this year is this.” “They,” being of course, the starving people of Ethiopia, and “this” being, I suppose, the record. While it may have been the greatest gift I got in 1984, and while I am sure Ure and Geldof and the rest of the crew they gathered to record the song that long ago day in London all had outsized egos, they were actually singing that the greatest gift the Ethiopians would get that year was life, due to the money raised by sales of the record, and not the record itself.

My more embarrassing 1984 favorite is Wham’s “Last Christmas.” The song, despite its infectious chorus, is numbingly repetitive and checks in at a bloated four and a half minutes. It is the video that left its impression on me, however. It features a brokenhearted George Michael sadly but gamely enduring a Alpine holiday ski-trip with a big group of friends, including his girlfriend from the previous Christmas, who is now dating Andy Ridgley and who has, cruelly, sadistically even, given Andy the brooch that George bestowed upon her the previous year. The video and its bittersweet story of love lost, in addition to setting unrealistic expectations for the kind of holiday get togethers with friends I should expect during my 20’s (never did get that call to meet everyone up at the big lodge in Kitzbuhel, Austria for a bit of skiing and some holiday fun), made such an impression that I still, sadly, make Deanna watch it with me each holiday season (thank god no one reads this blog!). There is much mocking by her of course, but for the most part, she is reluctantly indulgent of this bizarre holiday tradition. Reason enough to love her right there, I say, because frankly, holiday traditions don’t get more dorky than that. I might even buy her a brooch this Christmas.

Ginkle Bells

Hayden wandered by me the other day, smiling to himself while he tunelessly sang Jingle Bells to no one in particular. Because he is 2 1/2, and most likely has no concious memory of hearing the song before a week ago, it went like this: "Ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells." At that point, just when I thought he had some sort of robot-like short circuit in his brain, he unstuck, and launched into a verse that went something like "fun ... ride ... horse ... sleigh." In addition to finding this damn cute (seriously, like 10 times cuter than I have been able to convey here), I was also struck once again how awesome it is in some ways to be two.

Less than two months ago, the twins left behind a summer that was chock full of two year old fun and adventure and were immersed suddenly into Halloween culture - a blur of costumes and parties, pumpkin carving, and scary but fun decorations. They often insisted on wearing their costumes parts of each day leading up to Halloween, merrily following Owen in whatever crazy game or monster related fun he was cooking up that day. On Halloween itself, it took a total of about two houses to master the concept that if they said trick or treat and held out their bags, they would be handed actual CANDY - score!!

Then, before the sugar high had even worn off, everything was about turkeys and pilgrims and horns o' plenty, culminating with a giant party at our house attended by all of their favorite people on earth.

Two days after Thanksgiving, life changed abruptly again and we were hauling 14 bins full of Christmas wonder down from the attic. Suddenly, everything is Santa and lights and Christmas trees and Baby Jesus and songs and reindeer and stars. One day they are reading about snow and not really understanding it, and the next they are standing outside in the real thing, laughing delightedly as they attempt to pelt me with snowballs (I say attempt because to actually be pelted by a two year old, I would have to literally stand six inches from them). One day, they see lights on a tree in someones yard and go nuts. A week later, and we are, crazily, bringing a tree INTO THE HOUSE and putting lights on it. Madness, genius, ecstasy!!!

They accept these constant changes to their lives without question and with a good natured enthusiasm that is, of course, infectious. And really, why shouldn't they, as life at this point is a wonderous series of costume changes for the house which is essentially their world at this point, each more awesome than the next (actually, it is pretty debatable whether Thanksgiving is literally more awesome to a two year old than Halloween, but you know what I mean).

So, while being two has its downsides, a limited ability to fully express your wants and desires and our quite obviously unfair and onerous household policy of demanding children go to bed being chief among them, it seems, overall, like a pretty damn fine existence. Ginkle on.

A Billvember to Remember

10:30 p.m. this past Saturday night found me cleaning a vomit-drenched car seat inside the cold, dark minivan parked in our driveway. Before I go on, writing that sentence prompts me to offer the following word of advice for any prospective parents out there: while safety ratings in a car seat are great and all, I suggest you instead base your decision to buy a particular car seat on its ease of cleaning when something disgusting happens. Because, my naive young friends, something disgusting will happen, and many more times than just once. Car seat makers must take some secret glee in creating all kinds of nooks and crannies for nasty half-digested food bits and fecal matter to hide in, because despite my extensive efforts, I speak from experience when I guarantee that that car seat, and by extension the entire van, will still smell nasty 6 weeks from now.

As I went about my grim chore, my wife appeared behind me in the doorway of the van, looking bedraggled. Her voice husky with the beginnings of a cold and her lip still swollen to Angelina Jolie size from a shot absorbed from a two-year old head as she tried to wrestle one or another of the twins into clothes while I was at the office for six hours on Saturday morning. I turned and handed her yet another armful of vomit-soaked blankets and rags, careful not to put pressure on my toe that I was sure I had broken during some Christmas decorating excitement the day before. While it throbbed with pain the rest of Friday, it may not have been actually broken. It most certainly was on Saturday when Cooper jumped off of a wooden box directly onto nothing but the already injured toe, leaving me writhing in pain on the basement floor while Cooper stood over me asking "Daddy boo-boo?" over and over and over.

So, fittingly, ended November, not so fondly referred to as Billvember here at CloudEight due to the fact that it is the end of the billing year at the law firm where I am employed. Each year during Billvember, I disappear into a blur of work that leaves me largely unable to participate in any meaningful way in life at home and leaves Deanna spread even thinner than usual. During periods that I was at home, I was often distracted. My distraction did lead to some amusing incidents, such as absentmindedly handing the boys a half-full bag of cashews when they asked for oyster crackers for their soup. I only realized my mistake moments later, alerted by Deanna's confused exclamations upon finding Cooper enjoying a heaping bowl full of pumpkin soup soaked cashews. Anyway, while it is true that we here at CloudEight truly have an extraordinary amount to be thankful for, right now I am mostly thankful Billvember is behind me, and am looking forward to once again rejoining the family, and you all, for some Holiday and winter fun. See you soon!