Christmas Therapy

 

The modern Christmas Season, at least as practiced here in the United States, produces more anxiety and dread than joy and peace in most adults. The out of control commercialism and forced socializing that feeds unnatural expectations and feelings of emptiness and lack is, for the most part, impossible to avoid. Coming right on the heels of all of this Holiday splendid-osity is the arrival of the New Year, and its attendant year-end tallying up of the columns, both the material (taxes, etc…) and the spiritual (assessing the past, and aspiring for the future). It can all add up to Crazy-Making, to use the non-clinical term.

         A decade ago, give or take, in the midst of my own Christmas Holiday disquiet, I bumbled into creating a little self-help exercise that actually succeeded in taking a good portion of the loaded holiday stress from my mind. I’ve repeated ...

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‘Tis the Season: The Christmas Wars

 

‘Tis the Season. But which Season? Whose Season? What is the Reason for the Season?  Answers to these questions will be explored in the currently annual War on Christmas, as donation-seeking mega churches and attention-seeking megalomaniac pundits have dubbed it.

         Controversy and Christmas have often been observed together ever since the Reformation in England, when Puritans had the celebration of Christmas banned as having the “trappings of Popery.” The Protestant Puritans who settled in the New England colonies imported this same attitude towards Christmas to Colonial America. For many years, among those of Christian faith, Christmas was considered a minor festival in comparison to the Epiphany and Easter. Closing down a business in observance of Christmas was illegal in many parts of Colonial America, and government was kept in session. In England and America, during the late 1700s to early 1800s, the celebration ...

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Top Five Film & TV Rewrites/Updates of “A Christmas Carol”

 

The basic storyline of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” has been borrowed many times by the Entertainment Industry. The simple plot points—Grouchy Person hates Christmas, makes everyone else miserable, is visited by variations of the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future, Grouchy Person has a change of heart, Christmas is saved—have been the source of many Sitcom and Drama plots, as well as fertile inspiration for many, many Variety Show skits. This list concerns itself with Films and one-off TV Movies, many of which are nearly impossible to locate for viewing these days, but are worth the effort to find on cable TV or via tired and used VHS tapes or DVD-Rs.

 

5. Ebbie: One of the few to feature a female Scrooge character. Susan Lucci (All My Children) is the owner of Dobson’s department store, and ...

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Top 5 TV Christmas Specials

 

 

Aside from the Holiday stories presented on episodic TV, Television has brought viewers Christmas entertainment in the form of seasonal specials geared towards the whole family. Here is a short list of some the most memorable. Add your own memories in the comments.

 

5. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962). For many persons of the later Baby-Boom generation, this animated special was their first encounter with the Charles Dickens story of Scrooge. This musical Carol featured songs written by the team of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, who a few years later worked on Funny Girl. The story is highly edited from the Dickens original, and seasoned with jokes about Mr. Magoo’s bad eyesight, but Magoo’s usual mishaps are reserved for the scenes that take place outside of the Broadway theater in which Mr. Magoo is starring in the play. Many folks today ...

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Top 5 Old Time Radio Christmas Programs*

(*That are available for listening to on YouTube)

 

People even celebrated Christmas in the olden days – before cable TV, HD TV sets, DVDs, Bluerays and hand-held video players. Click on the titles to go and listen – and many of the links are only Part 1 of the particular program, so please be sure to listen to the other parts available at the YouTube site.

 

Superman’s Christmas Message - 1945

 

Bing Crosby Christmas Show – 1946

 

 

A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd - 1974

 

 

Christmas Shopping – Abbott and Costello – 1945

 

 

A Christmas Carol – Mercury Players - 1939

The Sublime, and the Sublimely Bizarre

 

Because so many deserving recordings were left off the Top 5 list.(Click on the individual song titles to hear the recordings)

The Yogi Yorgensson Ouvre:

"I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas"

"Yingle Bells"

"I Was Santa Claus at the Schoolhouse (for the P.T.A.)"

"The Christmas Party"

 

" 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by:

Art Carney

Liberace

David Hasselhoff

Henry Rollins

John Cleese

 

Songs about the 1914 Christmas Truce:

"Christmas 1914 In No-Man's Land" - Mike Harding

"Christmas in the Trenches" - John McCutcheon

"Snoopy's Christmas" - The Royal Gardsmen

 

A Red Sovine Classic:

"Billy's Christmas Wish"

 

More:

"The Twelve Pains of Christmas" - Bob Rivers

 

"Christmas Balls" - Ben Light and his Surf Club Boys

 

" 'Zat You, Santa Claus?" - Louis Armstrong

 

"Everywhere It's Christmas" - The Beatles (1966 Fan Club Record)

 

"Santa and the Purple People Eater" - Sheb Wooley

 

"Donde Esta Santa Claus?" - Augie ...

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Top 5 Christmas Novelty Recordings

 

There is never a greater need for a sense of humor than during the Christmas Holiday season. Over the years many recording artists, the famous and the obscure, have done their best to carve out a few minutes within which we can take a breath and laugh as we are dragged into the desperate, eccentric follies of the modern Christmas Celebration. Here are some examples to get you started – leave your own favorite Christmas Novelty recordings in the comments.

 

5. “Santa Claus and his Old Lady” – Cheech and Chong (1971). “The Christmas Story” for the Stoner Generation. This single by the famous counter-culture comedy duo made the Billboard Christmas Chart for three years running - #4(’71) and #3(’72 & ‘73) - and is still dragged out and dusted off annually at most AOR stations.

 

4. “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” – Gayla Peevey (1953). This is ...

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Top 5 Christmas Recordings of the Rock And Roll Era

 

Whether in the car, office, department store or the home, Radio provides the soundtrack for the Holiday Season so often and for so many. Here is my list of the Top 5 Singles released during the Rock And Roll era. The recordings included are not necessarily Rock And Roll music. I just wanted to limit my choices a bit. So much Christmas themed music has been released every Fall and Winter for the past century, that narrowing the list of favorites down to less than half a dozen would be like trying to pick your favorite 5 hairs on your head (regrettably much easier when it comes to my head).

 

5. “The Little Drummer Boy” – Harry Simeone Chorale (1958). Aside from a triangle or two, just human voices heard on this popular recording. This song is the English translation of ...

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The Top 5 Film Versions of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”

 

On this list we will numerate what I feel are the best film adaptations of the Charles Dickens novella, “A Christmas Carol.” This is the most common means by which the average person, over the past 5 decades or so, experiences the Dickens story. Rating the quality of the various “A Christmas Carol” movies is never without controversy, as most people who care about such things already have their own sentimental favorites. My own favorites have changed and evolved over the years, never more so than subsequent to finally reading the original book. This list will concern itself solely with ‘authentic’ adaptations – films that aspire to telling the Dickens story as written. Movies that involve huge overhauling and updating of the original book will be discussed in a separate list. As always, please feel free to offer your own list ...

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Top 5 Christmas Movies

(Those that are not versions of “A Christmas Carol”)

One of the most powerful of the modern Christmas Traditions is the yearly dusting off of movies that feature an overt Christmas Season theme. Generally spiritual as opposed to religious, many modern Christmas Movies often employ storytelling motifs of tragedy, magic and redemption, all three usually visited upon some poor character that has “lost the Christmas Spirit.” Here is a humble, and by no means definitive, list of some of my favorite Films of Christmas. Feel free to add your own in the comments section!

 

5. Miracle on 34th Street(1947). Santa Claus is put on trial because of a sort of sanity clause, in this classic film. A young Natalie Wood holds her own on screen with Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn and John Payne. This is really the best film to start the season with ...

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Top 5 Christmas TV Episodes

(From Sitcoms and Dramas of the Boob Tube)

 

From its inception Television has offered its own take on the Christmas Season. From sixty and ninety-minute dramas to situation comedies, as well as regular variety shows, Made-For-TV movies and Christmas ‘Specials,’ TV has brought its version of Christmas into the living rooms of those who were not getting enough of it out on the street. Here are a few episodes that I consider worth seeking out. Add your own in the comments.

 

5. Dragnet – The Big Baby Jesus. All the usual Dragnet self-seriousness, combined with Christmas schmaltz, and we get an episode sure to produce giggles of enjoyment. The Baby Jesus is stolen from the nativity display of a small, poor-but-proud church, and Sgt. Friday and his partner are hot on the case. The investigation turns up lots of Christmas red herrings – but can it be ...

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Top 5 Christmas Stories

(other than the original and the stories contained in my book “Christmas Wishes”)

 

This is a short list of stories containing a Christmas theme that have become annual favorites of mine. Some are stand-alone stories; others are excerpts from longer works. Some you have heard of, some you have not. Some you may agree with their being placed in the “Top 5,” others you may not – Feel free to add your own Top Christmas stories via the comments.

 

5. Christmas Eve by Washington Irving. Irving’s 1812 publication The Sketch Book contains five entries regarding a traditional Christmas celebration at a country manor house in England. Because of these chapters, the Sketch Book is often credited with revitalizing the celebration of the Christmas Holidays in the United States as well as England, both of whom had been indifferent to what was then considered a minor holy ...

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With a sad grimace he began to look for the price tag, but the young woman stripped him of the jacket, cradling it in her arms. On top of it she placed the shirt he had been looking at.

“It looks good, and this shirt will go with it okay. The pants look a little big, but we’ll get you a belt; and you need a tie.” She was off again before he could protest. That twenty-dollar bill in his pocket was feeling smaller. The young woman returned quickly, holding a red paisley tie up for inspection.“Hey — this remind ya of the Sixties? I got some socks and shoes too — what size are you?”

“Ah, about ten, ten and a half.”

She peered into a dusty pair of black dress shoes, “Hm, these say eleven, but try ‘m anyway. The leather shrinks when they sit on the shelf ...

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Review of "Christmas Wishes" from PlanetStarz.com, Mystic Living Today E-zine, December, 2005 --

 

"Christmas Wishes by Joseph Moore
The author states right up front and I agree, that this is a wonderful collection of short stories geared more towards the adult reader because of the profanity used to portray how real and painful the lack of Christmas spirit can get for some people. These stories all have one thing in common, these are about ordinary people who had lost the hope and magic that the Yuletide brings, and the wonderful ways that the Christmas earth angels were able to help them awaken one more time.

This book brings with it a total message of hope and faith, and this honestly refreshing approach to sometimes one of our emotionally hardest of holidays was nothing short of a miraculous feat by a wonderful and most creative Dickens inspired writer. Joseph was able ...

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Author’s Preface

 

            These are Christmas stories for adults.

            Not because they contain gratuitous sex (they don’t even have non-gratuitous sex). Nor is there any violence to speak of. There are a few instances of colorful profanity, but this is a device employed to add realism to the characters and, hopefully, to the stories. By making the characters and their daily lives as recognizable as possible it makes the magical things that happen to them seem possible in our own lives.

            There exist Christmas stories-a-plenty geared towards children. For adults the choices are far fewer, and tend to either be museum pieces or modern works that in their attempt to avoid borrowing from the classic Christmas archetypes stray so far from the celebration we grew up with that the spirit gets lost under ponderous schmaltz.

            Aware that the average adult has as much, if not more, to gain from ...

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