{"id":2094,"date":"2008-11-16T12:05:39","date_gmt":"2008-11-16T17:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=2094"},"modified":"2016-12-26T09:37:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T14:37:42","slug":"on-getting-in-that-christmas-mood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2094","title":{"rendered":"On Getting in that Christmas Mood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I realized yesterday, with some surprise, that Christmas is merely five weeks away.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d say it snuck up on me, but it didn&#8217;t.  Not really.  Four months ago I was writing about Christmas products &mdash; ornaments, nutcrackers, even calendars.  Last month, I wrote about Valentine&#8217;s Day stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Pretty soon, I&#8217;ll be thinking about the summer convention season.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m living in the future, as I often joke at work.  We have rocket cars there.  Not at work, that is.  In the future.  There are rocket cars there.<\/p>\n<p>I have a migraine, can&#8217;t you tell?<\/p>\n<p>I can look out the office window here at home and see a branch of a holly tree.  The other trees have leaves that have turned brown, if they have leaves at all.  But the holly branch is green, with its red balls, and it&#8217;s quite pretty.  It sways in the breeze.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve had Christmas music in the stereo, prompted by, of all things, Snoopy.  I saw the trailer for an upcoming video game, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joystiq.com\/2008\/11\/10\/peanuts-crimson-skies-snoopy-flying-ace\/\"><i>Snoopy: Flying Ace<\/i><\/a>, and when I shared it with coworkers, one fired back with the lyrics from the Royal Guardsmen song, &#8220;Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron.&#8221;  Which, naturally, prompted me to dig out my CD of Royal Guardsmen songs, several of which, like &#8220;Snoopy&#8217;s Christmas,&#8221; were Christmas related.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, one of the things I&#8217;ve had in the stereo is the Fab Four&#8217;s two albums of Beatle-y Christmas music.  (By the way, their music is <i>completely<\/i> weird when you <a href=\"\">use Audacity to OOPS the track<\/a>.)  About a year ago, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=1567\">I wrote out which Beatles songs were used as the basis for their Christmas carols<\/a>, like &#8220;While My Guitar Gently Weeps&#8221; becomes &#8220;What Child Is This&#8221; or &#8220;Tomorrow Never Knows&#8221; becomes &#8220;Jingle Bells.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s another album of Beatle-y Christmas music, <i>Xmas! The Beatmas<\/i> by Rubber Band.  However, I&#8217;ve never broken down how they took Beatles songs and turned them into Christmas songs.  Their line-up:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Jingle Bell Rock (Please Please Me)<\/li>\n<li>Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Eight Days A Week)<\/li>\n<li>Rockin&#8217; Around the Christmas Tree (I Saw Her Standing There)<\/li>\n<li>Last Christmas (Please Mr. Postman)<\/li>\n<li>Feliz Navidad (And I Love Her)<\/li>\n<li>I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (All My Loving)<\/li>\n<li>Jingle Bells (Love Me Do)<\/li>\n<li>Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Taxman)<\/li>\n<li>Mary&#8217;s Boy Child (Nowhere Man)<\/li>\n<li>White Christmas (Ticket To Ride)<\/li>\n<li>Silent Night (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There&#8217;s a final track, &#8220;A Bairn in Born in Beatlehome,&#8221; that borrows from &#8220;A Day in the Life,&#8221; &#8220;She Loves You,&#8221; and &#8220;All You Need Is Love,&#8221; among others.<\/p>\n<p>Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ll listen to <i>A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i> or something.  Vince Guaraldi, he wrote good stuff. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I realized yesterday, with some surprise, that Christmas is merely five weeks away. I&#8217;d say it snuck up on me, but it didn&#8217;t. Not really. Four months ago I was writing about Christmas products &mdash; ornaments, nutcrackers, even calendars. Last month, I wrote about Valentine&#8217;s Day stuff. Pretty soon, I&#8217;ll be thinking about the summer<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2094\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;On Getting in that Christmas Mood&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[64,643,4100,98],"class_list":["post-2094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-christmas","tag-red-baron","tag-snoopy","tag-the-beatles","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}