"All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey, Sunday, December 24, 2022 (reworked repost)

 "I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I. Don't want a lot for Christmas." *struggles to change the radio dial amid gridlocked holiday traffic* "There's just one thing I need" *hurry up with my damn latte! I think I'm going to die. Why the hell is Starbucks  playing Christmas music in mid-October?* "I don't care about the presents" *internal Elaine monologue 'I think I'm going to die in this department store. Ma'am, why must you spray the perfume so close to my face. I can't breathe! What if the earth begins to shake and we're stuck in here forever underneath mannequins and holiday shoppers and that damn Mariah Carey   song stuck on repeat?'* "Underneath the Christmas tree" "No" *raising a strict finger to students who should be studying in the back* "Not before Thanksgiving." "I just want you for my own/ More than you could ever know." Every year, Christmas music gets earlier and earlier. "Make my dreams come true." Corporate America wants to put us in credit card debt. "All I want for Christmas" Call me Scrooge, but I'd like to go back to childhood when Christmases were magical. "Is" If only we could go back in time to say, 199~ "You~~~~~~~~~" That's it! 1992! before this song ruled the world.

Meme from two years ago.

I DON'T NEED TO HANG MY STOCKING. Am I being too harsh on the holiday classic? Critics loved the song when it came out. If I were writing a blog in 1994, maybe I would have appreciated the musical elements--the throwback to old Christmas songs, the unique chords, the imitation of a wind-up Christmas music box--but in 2021, I'm too desensitized to whatever musical point Carey was trying to make. To me, Christmas music, the more traditional the better. There is something so much more magical about a small church singing on a snowy evening hymn from the 1800s than Bing Crosby singing in the '40s. When I was growing up, several CCM Christmas albums captured an old-time Christmas--whether it was Michael W. Smith's   Christmastime or the artists who sang on the City on a Hill Christmas project. There was something about the 20th-century Christmas songs that just sounded like shopping. And they were done to death--disco, punk, soul, pick a genre. My old soul, though, has to cope with a commercialized holiday, and at the center of the commercialized holiday rests "All I Want for Christmas Is You," the retail worker's nightmare adapted into a song. 

ALL THE LIGHTS ARE SHINING EVERYWHERE. It’s been a hard year and the holidays barely made an impact on me. Time moved so quickly that it felt like it was just yesterday that I was sweating in August heat and today it’s Christmas Eve. The school year was also a blur. Being short-staffed kept my coworkers and me constantly planning, teaching, grading, writing comments, and completing administrative tasks. Weekends were busy as I had taken on a little extra work and I spent the time with my partner who was completing his senior year of medical school. My personal time was split between blogging and following a fitness plan. And I also got sick more times this year since I stopped wearing a mask at the beginning of the year. I finally caught COVID in August, and I’m getting over my third cold (or maybe sinus infection) of the year. I also spent a lot of time (and money) preparing for a vacation this coming January to London. Now the semester has ended and I have free time. I furiously bought presents, and half-heartedly set up my Charlie Brown tree. Around November I started listening to Christmas music, but not exclusively, mostly on Spotify. Somehow the spirit of Christmas hasn’t settled in yet. I’ve been blogging about Christmas songs since the first week of December, but the season's magic feels to have worn off on my mid-thirties heart. So, today, I’m posting the original Mariah Carey version of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” because I’m not sick of it yet. I feel like I didn’t have a chance to get sick of it. I lived under my headphones this year while working in the office. I didn’t play Christmas music in class until the last days and I mostly controlled the music. Maybe, if the years go like this again, I can preserve the magic of the song. But I certainly don’t want to feel this rushed again. If years continue like this, I’m going to wake up and be old sooner than I think.

Read the lyrics on Genius.