More Holiday Cheer

Why stop with just a Christmas list? This is the holiday season, after all, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Diwali, and whatever Wiccans celebrate... I dunno, the Winter Solstice or something? So here are some non-Jesus, non-Santa holiday things.

Let me preface this by saying I loathe Adam Sandler. A lot. An awful lot. Along with Will Ferrell and almost everyone else from the last 30 years of SNL his one-joke shtick got stale decades ago. But Adam Sandler did write The Chanukah Song, even if he didn't sing it very well. The good news is Neil Diamond has done a cover of The Chanukah Song and his version not only does not suck, it's very good. And who doesn't love Neil Diamond?

Did you know there are Kwanzaa songs? Me neither, but why shouldn't there be? I don't think Kwanzaa has been around long enough for it to become as commercialized and subverted as Christmas has, though. But if I have to sit through the barking-dog version of Jingle Bells, why shouldn't people celebrating Kwanzaa be just as annoyed?

Okay, so Diwali fell in October this year, months before Christmas, but it's the closest thing in the Hindu faith, so I'm lumping it in. It's the celebration of good over evil so it's pretty much in the Christmas spirit anyway. I'm guessing there are Diwali songs - there's lots of music in India for everything else - but I'm fairly certain there aren't any barking-dog versions of any of them. I could be wrong, though. Can anybody tell me if there's a Diwali version of 'A Christmas Carol?' The British Raj ruled India for almost 100 years, some of that Dickens stuff had to have rubbed off.

Three years ago I was in Australia for Christmas - technically Chanukah, since my friends are Jewish - but since December in Australia is the middle of summer, Santa isn't the jolly German elf we know from the Thomas Nast illustrations, rather he wears shorts and is ably assisted by koalas and kangaroos. It was very odd having a barbeque cookout on Boxing Day, with the chance of thunderstorms.