Ponytail Picks #21 - Christmas
Are those jingle bells I hear? Is it the wicked white witch Jadis of Narnia or is it Santa Claus? Neither. It’s your friends at Ponytail Press bringing you another batch of picks, though we tend to side with Santa when it comes to the topic of Christmas, as evidenced below.
LISTEN
My Christmas babies
Knowing of course that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and of those that do, many celebrate differently, I humbly gift you these picks that have resonated with me over the years during this holiday season of peace and love in the month of December.
Bruce Cockburn - Christmas
I always tell people that this isn’t just one of my favourite Christmas albums, it’s one of my favourite albums, period. Sonically and lyrically diverse, as any album about a supposedly universe-impacting event like God becoming a human baby should be, Christmas draws from a variety of musical traditions and boasts lyrics in four different languages, including the original Huron text for “The Huron Carol.” It’s warm and earthy, and there’s something divine “moving in [its] elements.”
Bruce Cockburn - “Cry of a Tiny Babe”
Yes, another Bruce Christmas song. This one’s not actually on the aforementioned album but on his masterwork from a couple years earlier, Nothing but a Burning Light. It’s a rolling 7 minute folk rock jam that retells the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in a poetic and pointed fashion that gets to the heart of the significant socio-political ramifications of the event. Check out this sly feminist zinger of a first line:
Mary has a child without the help of a man…
Mary’s agency is highlighted again later on in the first verse when Cockburn imagines the scene after Joseph learns that Mary did not, in fact, cheat on him (as Mary surely would’ve told him already, but no, Joseph would only believe it when an angel said so…):
Joseph comes to Mary with his hat in his hand
Says, “Forgive me, I thought you'd been with some other man.”
She says, “What if I had been? But I wasn’t anyway, and guess what? I felt the baby kick today.”
Verse two paints the picture of the tumultuous political situation of the time and place in vivid strokes (“the governing body of the Holy land / is that of Herod, a paranoid man / who when he hears there’s a baby born King of the Jews / sends death squads to kill all male children under two”) before capturing the urgency of the family’s escape: “They head out for the border and get away clean.”
His theological emphasis is made clear in verse three (“The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth / For it isn’t to the palace that the Christ child comes / But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums”) and summarized nicely in the catchy chorus: “Redemption rips through the surface of time / In the cry of a tiny babe.”
As another one of my favourite Christmas songs puts it, “if it’s a story, what a story.”
Eartha Kitt - “Santa Baby”
Gonna do a complete 180 here, just to make sure I don’t get too carried away in trying to use my Christian theological studies degree. In all sincerity though, I’ve always been drawn to this song (while maintaining a hard pass on Michael Buble’s terribly misguided “I’M A MAN AND I’M NOT GAY AND I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO MAKE THAT CLEAR IN THIS CHRISTMAS COVER SONG BY SAYING BUDDY INSTEAD OF BABY AND ALSO ASKING FOR A ROLEX INSTEAD OF A FUR COAT CUZ I’M A MAN” version). The slow and sultry 1950s do-wop vibe with its delightful orchestral punctuations is irresistible, while Kitt’s voice is smooth like butter and the perfect thing to have at the forefront. Lyrically, it’s obviously the antithesis of everything I believe about the anti-capitalist and generous spirit of the holidays, but it takes it so far that it comes off as a rather cheeky satire. I mean, she asks for a goddamn duplex in her stocking and a fucking DEED to a PLATINUM MINE! Hilarious. Takes the Santa story and playfully pokes its belly for all its worth:
I really do believe in you
Let’s see if you believe in me
-JB
WATCH
A few favourite festive flicks
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
To an already moving tale of redemption is added some delightful puppetry (right down to singing vegetables), catchy and even occasionally poignant sing-alongs, unique on-the-spot omniscient narration by the outrageously funny duo of Gonzo and Rizzo (“I am here to tell tell the story” “And I am here for the food”), along with other excellent bits of comedy (Marley and Marley are hauntingly hilarious) and Christmas fuzzies (Scrooge’s Christmas morning journey through town is all kinds of happy).
Nativity! (2009)
Martin Freeman’s straight-laced, serious-faced Mr. Maddens and Marc Wootton’s boisterous, child-at-heart Mr. Poppy make for a hilarious pair; add in a white-lie-explosion plot and a rag-tag class of adorable kids with British accents singing Christmas songs and there’s plenty to smile at here.
The Grinch (2008)
This version of the classic tale got a lot of hate when it came out but I liked it! Decently enjoyable lightheartedness in acts one and two grows by three sizes in the third as the Grinch’s redemption arc is completed with a refreshing and poignant childlike straight-forwardness:
It was me. I stole your Christmas. I stole it because I thought it would fix something from the past. But it didn’t.
Doesn’t break any new ground but it sure broke my tear ducts wide open in the end.
-JB
READ
Should We All Read A Christmas Carol?
You’ve watched the movie. Heck, you probably watched three or four. But have you read Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol?
I know I haven’t. But after watching the chronicling of its creation in 2017’s The Man Who Invented Christmas, I’ve felt prompted to do so every December. This year will be the year. Maybe it will help me keep an eye on my inner Scrooge and encourage me to be more generous in 2023. At the very least, I expect it will be fun.
It’s short. There are only five chapters. Between now and the paragraph above, I read the first “stave” (as it’s called in the book)—“Marley’s Ghost.” It took me 45 minutes, and I’m not a fast reader. So the time commitment is less than you’d give to a mini series. I watch way more than four hours of TV in a week.
If you’re up for it, you can read along with me using the Project Gutenberg ebook, which comes complete with the original illustrations (see above). Or, if you’re even more committed to the idea, you could order a paper copy from The Next Page, my favourite bookstore in Calgary.
Either way, I hope to hear your thoughts on it in the coming weeks. And in the words of Scrooge’s nephew, “A Merry Christmas! God save you!”
-AK
That’s all for this week. We’re taking a break from the Picks format in two weeks to bring you our special take on the year-end round up. Hope to catch you there!