Not a fan of Christmas myself. Every year I forget the promise I made to myself to buy 31 days’ worth of tinned food at the end of November and wait out the zombpocalypse of shopping in December.
Nevertheless, my mother gets very, very upset every year when I tell her that no, I don’t want to catch a train for two hours each way for a family Christmas which I hate being at, so after the first few blow-ups I usually agree to suffer through it.
But one year she was trying to hustle everyone around and make them pretend that they’re having a good time when she remembered that I’d been listening to my iPod when she picked me up at the station.
“Do you have any Christmas songs on there?”
“Yeah, but probably not the sort you’re looking for.”
“Well put it on the stereo. No-one seems to be talking to each other.”
I tactfully pointed out that at a family gathering this was generally the best that could be hoped for. Our family gatherings tended toward feuds more typical of Rennaisance Venetian politics, with alliances constantly in flux depending on the importance of the most recent outrage, as measured on the Williams family algorithm, which I’ve never been privvy to but is only slightly more complex than the algorithm measuring the activity of all life in the universe.
When we got back on track after that little armageddon…
“No, really. It’s not the sort of music you want to play.”
“I don’t care. Hook it up.”
So I did. I selected the ‘Christmas’ genre playlist and randomised.
First up was South Park’s the Most Offensive Song in the World. “I heard there is no Christmas in the silly Middle East…”
It’s not a long song, but the lyrics are fairly clear, and after the third F-bomb she stormed over and hit the ‘skip forward’ button, shooting me a look which, if it could kill, would have let me skip the next couple of hours of the family gathering.
This cued up a lot of lo-fi tape hiss and a couple of plunks from a ukelele. I realised what was coming next. Tiny Tim’s “Santa Claus has Got the AIDS this Year”. It didn’t last much past the first verse. Pity. I like the bit where Santa isn’t singing out “ho ho ho ho” but instead he’s calling out “no no no no”.
And then there were Irish fiddles and a pretty little vocal and everything was good. My mother stomped over to me and, as Mr McGowan was trolling through the second verse, said “that’s better. I was starting to think that there was something wrong with your mind.”
The deficiencies of my mind are probably her second most favourite topic. Second only behind my failures as a son because I don’t call her or visit her often enough.
And at this point the lyrics take a sharpish turn. She paused. “Did he just call her a slut? Wait. ‘Lousy faggot’?” And again she stomped over to the stereo.
And cued up William Burroughs reading his (fairly positive) “a Junkie’s Christmas” over the Disposable Heroes of Hiphopracy’s backing.
This got the iPod pulled from its Jack. She stormed back and thrust it into my hands. “Why didn’t you say something? Do you know what’s wrong with your mind?” She started.
I felt like heading it off. “Look, I want to go home. Can I get someone to give me a lift back to the station?”
This derailed her. “Why? We haven’t even had lunch yet.”
Sigh.
This year she’s overseas harassing my sister and my Christmas Day will be spent replacing the toilet bowl that my tenants broke. I’m honestly anticipating the best Christmas ever.