Just Joy Volume 4

I’m not really a big celebrator of holidays. Christmas in particular is one I’ve felt ambivalent about for years. I’m all about the food and lights, and I don’t mind a low key gift exchange, but honestly I could sit it out. High on the list of things I dislike about that particular holiday is the music. 

When a musical artist puts out a Christmas album, it generally feels like either a cash grab or an attempt to resuscitate a flagging career. Even the one-offs are annoying, cloying, and trite. Add to that the ubiquitous repetition throughout November, and it’s enough to send you to Best Buy for every noise canceling device they sell.

And the classics are just as bad. Was Bing Crosby really dreaming of a white Christmas in the balmy LA sunshine? I don’t buy it. The sound of Jingle Bells jingling makes my teeth hurt. Worst of all is The Little Drummer boy. That kid would have been drummed right off the playground at my elementary school. And honestly, there’s something depressing about hearing the same songs decade after decade after decade. 

But for every rule there is an exception, and this one is no different. There is one Christmas song that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and which I am willing to listen to as many times as you want to play it. It is possible, nay, LIKELY, that you will not agree with me about this, but this is what makes humans unique and wonderful.

This particular number comes fully loaded with a super cheesy video—which would have been far better had 1980’s hetero-normative standards not prevailed. Alas.

It feels wildly inappropriate to make you listen to this harbinger of Christmas on the day before Thanksgiving, but that very unseemliness makes it impossible to resist.

Enjoy.