Thumpity-thump-thump, Thumpity-thump-thump, Over the fields of snow!

The "sleigh ride" my friend and I took yesterday evening in a pontoon boat on Lake Merritt was pleasantly addlebrained. Not merely a "Christmas event," the planners tried to make it a "multi-cultural solstice celebration," fitting an extremely racially and ethnically diverse city. We on the boat took to the standard Christmas carols with gusto, and to the other holiday songs less familiar to us, not really so much. I'm afraid I laughed aloud during our tour-guide's solo rendition of "The Dreidel Song" (he was an Asian-American fellow in a Santa costume).

Oh, we shivered on that boat after 7:00 PM. We were out in a forty-degree mist, a kind of dankness that soaks right into your bones. Because it was low tide (the lake is an estuary, remember), and because there was nobody walking the footpath by the water, anyway, for the chill, we missed the chance to pull the boat up alongside pedestrians and "carol to them." The boat operator kept the boat to the middle of the lake, fearing running aground in shallower water.

Was the evening worth the $5? Definitely.

While we were out, we got into an interesting discussion with fellow merry-makers about the mood of Christmas carol lyrics. A woman commented that the words of Joy to the World, about "the curse" and "thorns infesting the ground," seemed "somber" to her.

Dear lady, no.

I'll tell you the most somber Christmas carol still popularly sung, hands down. We didn't get to sing it last night, but it's We Three Kings. You remember the middle verse?

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breaths a life of gathering gloom Sorrowing, sighing, Bleeding, dying, Sealed in a stone cold tomb!

Ooooooh, star of wonder, star of night...

This, to be sung after swilling eggnog or champagne, amid the twinkling holiday lights of a cozy living-room!

Is this an instance of a darkly incongruous holiday humor?

Is it a touch of bitterness amid joy, ritualized in some religious celebrations? I'm thinking of the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, with the crushing of the small crystal glass by the groom as the vows are said, to commemorate the sacking of the Temple of Jerusalem.
12:46:21 PM    comment []