The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.… Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale of New York.
Christmas dreams, shattered and otherwise. Grubby lyrics and soaring music. Tenderness and hope – which, after all, is what Christmas is all about.
Merry Christmas. And a tip of the tuque to Walt Kelly, who brought joyous nonsense to Christmas when I was a boy.
Nick Lowe, Christmas at the Airport.
Proving that Christmas is where you find it. And what you make of it. A light in the darkness, a burger in a bin.
Back in the 1950s, people were worried that Christmas was becoming “too commercialized.” We’re sure lucky that didn’t happen.
Tom Lehrer, A Christmas Carol
Stan Freberg, Green Christmas
John Legend and Stephen Colbert, Nutmeg. Ladies, Mr. John Legend wants to nog your egg.
(This one is for Adam Schlesinger, another early victim of COVID-19. Thank you, Adam, for all the music.)
Yogi Yorgessen, I Was Santa Claus at the School House (for the P.T.A.)
We had this on a 78 when I was a kid and every year my dad would play it and laugh till tears ran down his cheeks.
Christmas the cowboy way. With yodelling.
Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott, Christmas (And Dad Wants Her Back). Should Dad get his wish?
For John Prine, who loved Christmas and died of COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Geez, I miss him.
Gayla Peevey, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. Though it’s been said many times, many ways, some girls just don’t want rhinoceroses.
Rannygazoo 