American Patrol

"It is the night with the Christmas trees and pie.
Jesus was born and so I get presents.
Thank you, Jesus, for being born."
--Cartman, South Park

I went to the laundromat the week before Thanksgiving. Laundromat mornings are a departure from my usual morning modus-- I leave the house before having any coffee, not wishing to be any more aware of the eight block forced full pack march it takes to get there than I have to be, and bring a go-cup. I was only a couple of sips in and only vaguely aware of my surroundings as I sorted my laundry (cold load-- stuff I care about; hot load-- stuff I don't), but began to realize that the laundromat was resounding with cries of "Christ! Oh Christ! Jesus Christ!"

It was another few ounces before I twigged to the fact that I was hearing not an angry and frustrated fellow laundromat patron, but Christmas music on the PA system. WLTE-FM here in Minneapolis has made a seasonal transition from “Lite FM” (1/3rd less aesthetic content) to all Christmas music, all the time, and the laundromat management had either decided to share a little premature holiday cheer with us or had simply neglected to change the station.

In either case, I was festooned with yuletide greatest hits for the next hour and a half, and in all that time I had heard absolutely nothing unexpected. All the usual suspects-- Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, even John Lennon (“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”) and the Beach Boys (“Little Saint Nick”)-- present and accounted for. How, I wondered, would they be able to keep it up for the next forty days?

By becoming amazingly repetitious, I would guess. Christmas music can be pretty repetitious to start with-- I have seen a tape loop of the repeating four note theme from “Carol of the Bells” clear a fairly crowded room in under ten minutes-- and doubly so when that music must be both popular and, umm, ethnically cleansed. While Mathis and Nat “King” Cole are doubtless invited to the party, along with Jose Feliciano (whose “Feliz Navidad” now sounds kind of weird when it doesn’t end with the words “…and from Taco John’s”), I would be surprised to hear Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph", shocked to hear Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas, Baby", and completely floored if they played Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis." They are, apparently, dreaming of a white Christmas.

Speaking of amazingly repetitious, the day after Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the Holidazzle Parades. Parades, plural-- four a week, Thursday through Sunday, every week until the Sunday before Christmas Day. Why Minneapolis needs to stage fifteen parades when most cities make do nicely with just one is something of a mystery-- one might think it has something to do with the utter boredom inherent in Minnesota winters, but alleviating boredom by standing in the cold on the sidewalk on Nicollet Mall watching marching bands and floats is crazy even by Gopher State standards. The default answer in such situations hereabouts usually has something to do with our overwhelming specialness as a place and a people-- it's horseshit, of course, but it will have to do.

Sorry for the humbug. Honestly, I like the Christmas season as much as the next atheist-- starting about December 18th.