One very familiar type of song is the Christmas carol, although it is perhaps
a bit out of season at this time. However, I am informed by my disk jockey
friends, of whom I have none, that in order to get a song popular by Christmas
time you have to start plugging it well in advance, so here it goes. It's
always seemed to me, after all, that Christmas, with its spirit of giving,
offers us all a wonderful opportunity each year to reflect on what we all
most sincerely and deeply believe in - I refer, of course, to money. And
yet, none of the Christmas carols that you hear on the radio, or in the street,
even attempts to capture the true spirit of Christmas as we celebrate it
in the United States, that is to say the commercial spirit. So I should like
to offer the following Christmas carol for next year as being perhaps a bit
more appropriate.
Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say when.
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
("Just the thing I need, how nice!")
It doesn't matter how sincere it is,
Nor how heart felt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high,
Tell us to go out and buy!
So, let the raucous sleighbells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
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