Musings on Christmas Songs

With the Christmas season upon us, it is impossible to go anywhere without being inundated with Christmas songs.  I have also noticed that different places will play a different selection of Christmas songs which got me thinking that most Christmas songs can be placed into one of four basic categories.

1 – Jesus Songs

These are the songs about Jesus and His birth.  This includes the classic Christmas carols like “Away in a Manger” or “Angels We Have Heard on High” as well as some of the more recent Christmas songs like “Mary, Did You Know?” or “Welcome to Our World.”  This category also includes religious Christmas songs that don’t mention Jesus directly, such as “Ding Dong Merrily on High.”

2 – Santa Claus Songs

These are songs about Santa Claus.  This includes songs that are directly about Santa like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” or “Hooray for Santy Claus” as well as the songs more tangentially related to Santa Clause like “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”  This category also includes songs that are about Christmas-y characters like “Frosty the Snowman” or the songs from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  They may have nothing to do with Santa, but they are very similar in tone to the ones specifically about Santa.  When in doubt, if the song is aimed at kids, it belongs in this category.

[Edit: December 17
This category also includes songs that deal with magical occurrences during the Christmas season.]

3 – Christmas Season Songs

These are songs about celebrating the Christmas season.  This includes songs like “White Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  Common themes of these songs include giving gifts, spending time with loved ones, and wishing good will to our fellow man.  This is also a bit of a catch-all category in that if the Christmas song in question doesn’t really fit with the other three then it goes in here.

4 – Winter Songs

These are songs that are considered Christmas songs but really have nothing to do with Christmas but are instead about the weather around Christmastime as experienced in the states north of the Mason-Dixon line.  This includes songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”  I go back and forth as to whether these songs really form a category all their own or if they are really a very large subset of the Christmas Season songs.

There are some songs that could be considered hybrids of two categories.  “The Christmas Shoes” mentions Jesus specifically, and is written from a Christian perspective, so that would put it in with the Jesus Songs, but the story of the song is about buying presents and showing goodwill to your fellow man, which puts it squarely in with the Christmas Season Songs.  “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is a fun one because the category it belongs in depends on whose perspective we’re using.  If we’re going by the perspective of the child singing the song, it’s a Santa Claus song since it’s about Mommy kissing the real Santa Claus and for some reason Daddy is nowhere to be found.  If, however, we look at it from the perspective of what’s really going on, it belongs in the Christmas Season category since it’s about a Christmas party where Daddy has dressed up as Santa Claus and is using the mistletoe as an excuse to snog Mommy (or vice versa).

Is there an important category that I’ve overlooked?  Are you wondering in which group a particular Christmas song belongs?  Comment away.

Musings on Characters: The Little Mermaid

I am currently in the middle of a two weekend run of The Little Mermaid Jr., a shortened version of the Broadway musical based on the Disney movie (loosely adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale).  The songs are loads of fun but I have come to realize that the Disney version of the story is filled with characters who are either lousy people or lousy at their jobs.

Spoilers for the five people out there who haven't seen the movie or are unfamiliar with the story.

Ariel is the worst Disney princess ever.  She is selfish, irresponsible, and has no regard for authority.  The second scene in both the movie and the show features a concert in which Ariel will make her big singing debut.  And yet, when the time comes for her big entrance, she is nowhere to be found.  She is too busy looking for human stuff to bother with trivial things like concerts (or rehearsals).  And it's not as if she made the choice not to go - she simply forgot.  This shows wanton disregard for Sebastian as her director, her sisters as her fellow performers, and all the merfolk who came to the concert hoping to hear her sing.  When she makes the selfish decision to become human, she does it without thinking about her family who just might worry about where she is when she suddenly disappears.  When King Triton makes rules about not venturing to the surface, he is doing so with good reason.  In the first minute of the movie three dolphins and a seagull are almost run over by a ship manned by sailors who are hauling a net full of fish onto the deck.  These are dangers Triton is trying to keep his people safe from, but every time he tries to enforce these rules on Ariel, she busts out with the "You're so unfair!" language.  And apparently the only qualification for being the love of her life is to be really handsome.

In the musical, Prince Eric's father is dead, and yet he is continually avoiding taking up the crown, much to the chagrin of his valet, Grimsby (who may be the only truly respectable person in the entire cast of characters).  Instead, Eric spends his time roaming the seas, actively thwarting Grimsby's attempts to provide the kingdom with a king, a queen, and a subsequent heir.

As bad as Ariel's decision is to trade her voice to become human, it is King Triton who makes the worst decision in the story.  He surrenders his power to the witch Ursula in order to save his daughter.  This is the WRONG decision.  As king, his first responsibility is to his kingdom and his subjects.  Delivering them into the hands of a power hungry woman who wants to dominate everything in the ocean is not in their best interests.  And it's not as if Ariel is his only child and heir; he has six other daughters, all of whom are older than Ariel, and therefore presumably higher up in the line of succession.

Triton is lucky Ursula was even worse than he was as ruler of the seas.  Sure she's really good when it comes to manipulating and conniving, but when she finally gets all the power she wants, her reign of terror lasts about five minutes before she loses control of her powers and is undone.

Sebastian is a terrible director.  Not only does he persist in crafting a concert around a singer who consistently misses rehearsal, but he is so incompetent that he starts the concert without knowing whether or not his star is even in the building.  Ariel's sisters are just as bad.  Could even one of them take the time to remind Ariel of when the concert is and then check in with her right before it all starts?

Even Chef Louis is a failure if he can't catch one simple hermit crab that is running around loose in his kitchen.

The more I think about the Disney version of the story, the more I prefer the original ending.  The Little Mermaid makes the bad decision to give up her voice to get legs to try and woo her prince.  But he ends up choosing someone else.  The Little Mermaid is doomed to die when the sun sets.  But her sisters show up at the last moment to give her an out: if she kills the prince, letting his blood spill on her feet, she will turn back into a mermaid.  But this time she makes the right decision and spares the prince and as a result dies.  It's tragic, especially since she dies directly as a result of making a good choice, but it shows that choices have consequences, while the Disney version has Ariel getting everything she wanted even though she consistently makes the wrong choice.