One of my favorite themes to explore during the holiday season is: Why?
Why do we pretend to be happier than we are, then feel bad that we're not nearly as happy as everyone else seems on social media? Why has "Merry Christmas" become a slogan spit out why social conservatives to say "You are not like me"? Why have we made the birth of a child who we now know would be tortured and killed by the governing authority as an adult, only to be used into perpetuity to justify subsequent governing authorities, the symbol of our supposedly happiest season? Why Christmas sweaters?
I think that what makes the proclamation "That's ok, Christmas means nothing to me" from Fuzzy's "Christmas" so liberating. Maybe it's just another day in an unheated house in Boston, hanging onto a warm body and asking, "How will you tell me if I change my mind?"
After twenty years listening to it I still have no idea what the Pixies' "Holiday Song" means. Again, maybe that's the point. Or maybe the most salient question is this: Is that refrain Here I am with my ham, or Here I am with my hand?
"Christmas is crying as he stumbles in vain to find Wild Turkey and vanish in pain." One of my favorite lines to a Christmas song ever.
And finally, the Vandals give us a definitive statement in response to the big Why? straight out of the Clark Griswold playbook: FUCK IT.