Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

I just learned that Shaved Fish was released a month before I was born. So I guess it's no wonder that John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" feels like it's been with me all my life.

There was a time before it felt like Christmas music was an enormous part of my life; before I could spend hours debating the best version of "Jingle Bells." (I still don't have a definitive answer to this, although Crash Test Dummies and Barenaked Ladies are both surprisingly good contenders.) But there was never a time that Christmas music was not a part of my life. It just used to be less like a favourite t-shirt and more like a dependably warm but unremarkable afghan.

There are a few exceptional songs, though, that stood out, for whatever reason, and that don't have to do with my life After Christmas Music but that resonate with me so much because of my exposure to them as a kid, surrounded by my family. 'Cause family is ultimately what Christmas is about.

I used to play this song every year, pulling out the cassette and placing it in the big black dual cassette player/record player/radio that was our stereo for as long as I can remember. Every Christmas morning, it was the song that I wanted to hear. I know I used to do this, because I remember remembering this. But when I think about this song, I'm not transported back to my home on Edgevalley drive, where I spent 11 Christmases, but to the house on Stoneham, where I only spent one.

Mom said to me once, "I was so proud of that house." She was talking about the way that things go, and about how sometimes you can be prepared to embrace what you get because you get what you need, and that's all that you were asking for anyway, and then be so ecstatically, wonderfully surprised by the fantastically rich, double chocolate cream cheese icing on the cake. She told me she didn't think she'd ever meet anyone, that it wasn't in her plan. She just wanted to be able to afford a modest home for herself and her kids and to have her independence. And she got it. The icing is a whole other story. A really great one.

My parents separated during the summer after my second year of university, that first time around, that time I dropped out, not really knowing why I was there in the first place except that it - university - seemed to be the thing to do. Their separation was hard on my dad. Really, really hard. It was hard on all of us in different ways, but for Mom it was also incredibly freeing.

I loved my Dad a lot, but he sure did stress me out. He was angry, incredibly self-involved, unpredictable. I suffered from the worst tension headaches as a teenager, and I'm convinced their virtual abandonment was not so incidentally related to my father's absence. [Let me say here, for the record: My Dad's changed a whole lot. And my Dad is a million times happier now than he was then. And although he had a rough go of it for a number of years I doubt that he regrets much of it because of how he can appreciate what he has now, largely because of it.]

The year I lived on Stoneham I worked at Chapters. It was great. Sometimes I think it was the best year of my life. I've never read so many books. I was surrounded by family, and friends from high school, and new friends I made at the bookstore. I felt like I belonged there, with my new bookstore friends; I've never felt so secure within an extended social group. Nearly every night we'd gather at Hemingway's, the bar across the street, after work to talk about ourselves and books and where we were going. I felt well-liked, and confident, for the most part. I had all this disposable income. And I felt hopeful. I don't know why, with all of that awesome stuff around me, I got it into my head that I should be somewhere else, but maybe it is exactly for that reason: It is very difficult to make a major life change when you don't feel supported or good about yourself. I decided to move to Halifax, a city I'd never even seen.

My favourite thing about that year, though, was getting to spend it with my mom. I got to see her happy and herself. It was like an enormous weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, and she knew that she was going to be okay. We had a lot of fun, spending time together as adults; having coffee together in the morning, watching and laughing about "Days of Our Lives" on occasional, lucky free afternoons. And we really talked. She helped my fragile, twenty-year-old heart when it got bruised. She picked my up from Katherine's house all the way in Rexdale! And she always kept the porch light on for me.

Shaved Fish is my Dad's cassette, but it got left behind, like lots of his stuff. My mom probably still has it in the same drawer in that enourmous black cassette holder that's always been there, except somewhere else.

On Christmas, on Stoneham, I remember running downstairs in the morning, fast-forwarding side b to the very last song and hitting "play." I felt like a kid and I still feel like a kid to hear it. It is mine and dad's and mom's and home no matter, wherever, I go. And that year, it felt especially joyful. Happy Christmas. War is Over.

Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
(War is Over, if you want it, war is over now)
For weak and for strong
The rich and the poor ones
The road is so long
So happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
(War is over, if you want it, war is over now)
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
And we hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas (I Love You)

The best Christmas album to come out in this millennium is, I think, Hawksley Workman's "Almost A Full Moon." In this, he celebrates family and friends and the holiday season. This song in particular speaks to the warmth and love that exists despite the unexpected and tragic events that happen in the world.

I'm not going home for Christmas this year. "Home" in this instance meaning where my mom lives. I won't be waiting up with my brothers until midnight or one in the morning to sneak downstairs to open stockings that "Santa" has just recently filled for us with Archie comics, clementines and Kinder surprise eggs. I won't be going to Burlington to see Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Barb and Uncle Peter and Sam and Alex, and to not eat turkey and cranberry sauce but scarf down mashed potatoes and stovetop stuffing. I won't be hearing Grandpa's recitation of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" or singing carols with my mom and whomever else can be convinced, around the piano.

My brother Geoff will likely not be there to wait up for stockings either. He's just moved into a new apartment with his new wife Patricia. And my brother Ted won't arrive in Toronto until 11:30 am Christmas Day. There was no Chester family dinner at the Old Mill restaurant this year. And Sean lives in PEI this season, so my Christmas mix making was even independent of him.

But on Christmas Eve I will be seeing my brother Ted and his fiance Hayley at my Dad's house in Porter's Lake, where he lives with his wife Susan. Christmas always manages to feel Christmasey, wherever I am. I feel blessed.

I meant to write all kinds of blog entries about Christmas songs this month, but shopping and work and house cleaning has left me with little free time, and, I suppose, I just haven't felt the exactly right kind of inspiration for writing as much as I'd like.

Friends and family near and far: I wish you all Happy Holidays. I wish we could all be together. You're dear to me and in my thoughts and my heart.

Merry Christmas (I Love You) - Hawksley Workman

If god takes you he leaves
a huge footprint of love
and kindness behind
which is where you once stood

And I know you're afraid
to get on the plane
after what happened that day
and selfishly I want you here in my way

But animals come
and animals go
and love is just a laundry line
we hang on until

we're dried out by the sun
and when you think your turn is done
you end up getting dirty
and it's all again begun

Now words i think are just
a noisy dirty wind
makes the trouble we get in
so why do we speak

Now we made another war,
that's what men are good for
men with stupid insecurities
and not a lot more

And satisfied they try
its written about again
but who the hell reads history?
apparently not men

'Cause nothing's guaranteed
except the politics of need
did the Romans see the ship go down
or were they asleep?

I shouldn't expect to live
and I shouldn't expect to die
but I wouldnt mind being beside you, dear
on that laundry line to dry

And for my grandma and my brother
my father and my mother
and you my sweetest lover
to you all I will say

Merry Christmas I love you
and god is above you
Merry Christmas I love you
and god is above you

Merry Christmas I love you

Fairytale of New York

Fairytale of New York is my A#1 absolute favourite Christmas song in the history of ever. No two ways about it. This is a very informed claim, having enthusiastically sifted through thousands of versions of hundreds of Christmas songs, because I am weird like that. And because, thankfully, Sean is weird like that, and introduced me to the whole Christmas music phenomenon.

He did not, however, introduce me to this song.

I get kind of pissed off by people who make the claim that this hardly counts as a Christmas song because said people feel they can listen to it all year round. It's a very derogatory comment to make about Christmas music. But truth be told, my formative and best memories of "Fairytale of New York" are of Toronto summer nights spent dancing sloppily, drunkenly, and with Justin, to this song at the James Joyce Pub, strummed by that guy who would play all of our requests. For us, he played The Beatles, David Bowie, Stan Rogers, and the Pogues. Now, I mind the Toronto summer heat, but then I never did, and for reveling in it there was no better companion than my dear friend and very first drinking buddy.

Justin and I had a very easy relationship that was sometimes made complicated by our youth, our sensitivities, our genders, and our unabashed enthusiasms that occasionally got tricky with our tendencies to go hard rather than going home. I remember a particularly sobering and difficult conversation at Hob Nob Donuts following one such evening. I remember it like I was approaching the end of something that I needed to have in my life. I remember feeling like I knew that we could never go back to the way things were; the way things were when our friendship was uncomplicated by things that should have been left out of him and I. It was okay, though. We were okay. We repeated some of the same mistakes I suppose; but no, they weren't really mistakes - just growing pains I guess. And I think we learned through one another a lot of what we really wanted.

I also think about Justin when I think about Christmas, though the soundtrack to our Christmases together would have been far less inspiring than the soundtracks to our summers. We began a few consecutive Christmases at Country Style Donuts at Dundas and Islington, it being the only place open so late on Christmas Eve night, and I'm sure that whatever godawful music they were playing there was entirely appropriate to a suburban donut store franchise. These evenings would follow our tradition of tobogganing at Centennial Hill with our brothers.

Justin's mom sold her house on Saskatoon rd. several years ago. He has no family left in Etobicoke. My mom lives on Kipling Avenue, now, in an area that's fairly close to the home I grew up in on Edgevalley Drive, but in a house that is not quite my home.

I don't get to see Justin much anymore. It's been a couple of years since his last visit to Halifax, and now when I go "home" he's not one of the people I get to see. He has his own house with his wife and a dog (!) in the Ottawa Valley. I've never even seen it. We hardly ever talk on the phone, and the rare emails we send are fairly concise. Justin has always been sparing with his words. He is, through and through, a man of action.

The closest friends I had in high school were Justin, Katherine, and Tim, and they remain, despite distance and generally pretty shoddy upkeep, three of my closest friends in the world, to my mind at least. They are all very good with words, but Justin has never ever needed to reassure me. Not even that one time I thought he did. He is one of the few people in the world, like family, whom I know will always love me; and he does love me, in his understated and very loyal Justin way, just for being me.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you