Christmas Shoes

So this is Christmas, as John Lennon said.

And what have you done?

You have been listening non-stop to Christmas music since the day after Halloween.

Christmas music is a relative term, of course. The muzak played on the non-stop Christmas music stations mostly consists of a small, tightly controlled list of classic favorites and God-awful covers of classic favorites, with a few garish novelty tunes thrown in, mostly alternated so that the listener doesn't convert to Buddhism. They are repeated in an endless, mind-numbing loop. Many of these tunes are only tangentially related to the actual holiday, but do have the word "snow" in them.

I realize that picking on Christmas songs is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but among these seasonal songs is perhaps the worst song ever written. With apologies to Dave Barry, I think that particular award has to be given to the song that has given this post its title.

This is a song so shameless, so horrifying, that my stepdaughter Allie stomped on the dog in a frantic scramble to get to the radio and change the station the minute she heard its opening notes.

It can induce nausea so reliably that Poison Control Centers have suggested its use in lieu of Ipecac.

My eardrums want to puncture themselves rather than risk even one more hearing of this song.

More cloying than Honey, more manipulative than Alone Again Naturally, this song breaks new ground in pandering and tear-jerking.

Let's deconstruct, shall we?

Here is a Christmas song about a poor ragged child standing in line to buy his dying mother some shoes.

Where to begin to address the issues here?

First of all, Christmas songs about poor children and anything or anyone dying should be completely off limits. For one thing, the poor child angle, has, I believe, already been adequately addressed by The Little Drummer Boy. But at least the Little Drummer Boy's mom didn't die, as far as we know. Christmas songs are supposed to be about joy, for goodness sakes.

And poor, saintly dying mothers are the ne plus ultra of tearjerking, the nuclear bomb of sentimentality. Combining them in song with poor ragged children at any time is just wrong.

Even the next most maudlin subject, the dying pet dog, does not come close. Couldn't the poor ragged urchin be purchasing a new dog collar for his soon-to-expire pet? Wouldn't that be pathetic enough?

And shoes, of all things. Shoes so that his mom will look nice in Heaven. Come on. Sick mom doesn't need shoes. She needs a cure, or medicine.

And then, the boy scrounges in his pockets for pennies, and finally appeals to the guy in line, no doubt sporting those big eyes like the big-eyed children in those Keane paintings.

And, of course, the whole purpose of the boy and his plight was to remind Mr. Man what Christmas was all about.

Even Charles Dickens, who created some of the most pitiful scenarios ever, could not outdo this. Mr. Bob Carlisle, the composer of the song in question, has him beat.

Arrrgh! There are no onomatopoetic words to describe the sounds I am making.

But they still sound better than Christmas Shoes.