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The Last Drummer Boy Christmas

THE LAST DRUMMER BOY CHRISTMAS
by Rob Wynne
TTTO: The Little Drummer Boy (Katherine Kennicott Davis) / Peace On Earth (Ian Fraser, Larry Grossman, and Alan Kohan)

Just last Christmas pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I gave my heart to you pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
But the very next day pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
You gave my heart away pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum

This year I will not make pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
The very same mistake pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
To save me from my tears pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I’ll be more wise this year pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum

Once bitten and twice shy pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I stay away from you pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
but still you catch my eye pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
Do you still recognize? pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum

Well now it’s been a year pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I’m not surprised, I fear pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I wrapped my heart for you pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
I meant my “I love you” pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum

And now I know for sure pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
That I was quite a fool pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
but if you kissed me now pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
My heart would still unspool pa-rum-pa-pa-pum
rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum

[Peace On Earth Interweave]
A lover’s face, a fiery heart
(Just last Christmas pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
I hid but you tore me apart
(I gave my heart to you pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
But now I’ve found a real love
(But the very next day pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
I’ve found love, and you will not fool
(You gave my heart away pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
Will not fool. not fool me again
(rum-pa-pa-pum, rum-pa-pa-pum)
A real love
(This year I won’t give pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
can it be?
(you my heart)

Everyone must be made aware
Not to place hearts into your care
I care enough for my fellow man
To give all the warning I can

Now my new love will be true
(This year I will not make pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
She won’t hurt me just like you
(The very same mistake pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
I gave my heart to someone
(To save me from my tears pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
Someone who I know will not hurt
(I’ll be more wise this year pa-rum-pa-pa-pum)
will not hurt, not hurt me again
(rum-pa-pa-pum rum-pa-pa-pum)
A real love
(Me and my heart)
Can it be?
Can it be?

I first heard about The Little Drummer Boy challenge a few years ago. The idea was that you had to see how long you could go in December without hearing “The Little Drummer Boy”, and if you made it to Christmas Day without hearing it, you won.

In 2017, some enterprising folks decided to up the ante, by creating “Whamageddon”, which is the same game, except in this one you have to make it to Christmas Day without having heard Wham’s 1984 hit “Last Christmas”.

I didn’t make it on “The Little Drummer Boy”, thanks to a friend linking me to a skit featuring it, but I made it to Christmas Day without hearing “Last Christmas”, so….yay?

Anyway, I’ve certainly spent more time this year THINKING about “Last Christmas” than I might otherwise, and, well, my brain is a strange place.

Saturday Six: Christmas Time Is Here

Since this week’s Friday Five Digest is a day late, You get a bonus!  Here’s six items just in time for the holiday season, including my annual repost of Tris McCall’s Christmas Abstract.

tris mccall: Tris McCall Christmas AbstractTris McCall Christmas Abstract The Tris McCall Report Christmas Abstract Middle-of-the-pack Christmas carol; short, uncomplicated, not particularly poetic, acceptable to the secular crowd because it’s about angels, and angels for some reason are considered ecumenical. Me, I know backsliding into polytheism when I hear it.

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These 2 Kids Have Taken A Photo With Santa For 34 Years. Needless To Say, The Last Few Are Epic.These 2 Kids Have Taken A Photo With Santa For 34 Years. Needless To Say, The Last Few Are Epic. Having a holiday tradition can make Christmas just a little bit more enjoyable. Whether it’s a family Christmas exchange where you steal all of the good gifts or an epic 5,000 calorie feast, it really ties the holidays together and makes this time of year feel special.

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A Ten-Month-Old’s Letter To SantaDear Santa, I am a ten-month-old baby and I write because my mother has been sending out my “Christmas List” to people, and her list does not in any way represent the things I really want. I could give two s#*ts about receiving stacking cups. And I know you’re ready to make the joke about…

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VIDEO: Kindergartner signs school’s holiday concert for parentsA young Florida girl didn't want her deaf parents to miss out on her school's holiday concert, so the kindergartener signed the entire show while performing at the same time.

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via Kltv

My Kid’s Insane Christmas Wish List, AnnotatedWhen I was a kid, I would dream up completely insane presents to put on my Christmas wish list–shit that no parent could ever possibly afford and no child could ever possibly deserve. And every year, my parents would tell me before Christmas that I would NOT be getting the little race car I saw on the Obstacle Course round of Double Dare.

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This Christmas, Get The Kids Books (No Batteries Required)Hey there, befuddled aunts, uncles and family friends. Not sure what to get for all those nieces, nephews and offspring of other people? This year (for the first time!) we’ve included kids titles in our year-end best books roundup. Pay a visit to NPR’s Book Concierge to see what our staff and critics recommend for kids and teens in 2013.

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via Npr

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving in the US, and we’ve been enjoying the first day of our long weekend with lots of good food and a mini-marathon of Doctor Who.

I’ve always been a huge Doctor Who fan, dating back to when I was a kid.  My room looked like a Doctor Who museum gift shop exploded in it.  I watched every episode, read every book, and bought every poster and collectable I could get my hands on.  Doctor Who fandom in the 1980s was a pretty small group in the US, but we were die-hard.

When the show relaunched in 2005, I was elated, and it once again became appointment television.  Up until the middle of season six or so, at least.  But something about the tenor of the developing storyline with Amy, Rory, and River was bothering me.  It just didn’t feel right;1  I still can’t really articulate it, the whole story that was developing over the beginning of season 6 just didn’t sit well with me.

There wasn’t a breaking point; there wasn’t a moment where I threw down the remote and said “That’s it, I’m done!”2  But something was corrupted in my download of the subsequent episode, and I needed to go and re-download it3 and then we got distracted with this thing and that thing and….the next thing I knew, time had passed and we still hadn’t gone back to pick it up.  The things I was hearing about the developing storylines didn’t actually make me feel like I wanted to come back to it, either.  I did watch “Asylum of the Daleks” with runnerwolf, and the Christmas special “The Snowmen”, because those were setting up the new companion.  The first just refreshed my annoyance with the Rory/Amy storyline, and the second I liked well enough to say I wanted to watch the series again, but not so much that I immediately made room in my schedule for it.

Then, this last week, they aired the 50th Anniversary episode.

I had been keeping an eye on the lead up to the festivities, but I figured I’d wait and see what they actually did with it before committing to watching it.  Multi-Doctor stories are tricky at the best of times, and I was a bit wary of what they might do with it.  But after it aired I heard nothing but good things4, so I pulled it down and we settled in to watch it on Monday night.

To say I loved it would be an understatement.  I’d been intending all week to write a more detailed reaction to it, but this was an episode that felt so perfectly right to me, with the right balance in tone between funny and serious, paid the right nods of respect to the classic series, and managed to hit a big reset button on some of the recent continuity in such a way that preserved the effect while lifting the staggering burden from the Doctor’s shoulders so that he can move on without being blithe and simply deciding to ignore the monumental consequences of his actions.5

The net result of this has been a revitalisation of my interest in the adventures of the good Doctor, so today we settled down over our Thanksgiving dinner to start watching again.  We’re not going back to where we left off — I’m still not entirely ready to watch the rest of the Ponds’s saga — but we did pick up with “The Bells of Saint John”, which was the first proper episode featuring Clara as a companion.  We got through four of them today, which is rather a lot in one stretch for us any more, and I’m finding myself quite engaged.  Some of this is due to Clara herself.  She really reminds me more of an old-school companion in her relationship to the Doctor, and she’s smart and very capable.  The details of her unfolding mystery are interesting enough, but mostly I just like her personality.

We expect to watch the remaining four episodes we’re behind on over the weekend.  I hope everyone had a wonderful day, and that, regardless of whether you are in the US or not, that you spent it enjoying life with people  you love.


  1. I expressed this to my friend Jeff, who has been my best friend since we were twelve and is also a devoted fan of the show.  He said, “I’m sorry you don’t like them.” and I explained that it wasn’t that I disliked them.  I loved Amy and Rory to death, and what I didn’t like was what was being DONE to them. 

  2. In fact, the last episode we watched was “The Doctor’s Wife” by Neil Gaiman, which I loved to bits. 

  3. I still download the episodes off the underwebs.  I don’t trust BBCA not to make a dog’s breakfast out of the episodes cutting them down for time, after the travesty of their edits on “The Eleventh Hour”. 

  4. Even Zander Nyrond, who has been a bitter critic of the new series, wrote “that actually wasn’t bad. I shall probably watch it again, and who knows, it might even make “rather good.”” 

  5. Doctor Who has never been the world’s most continuity-conscious shows in the best of times, but there are some elements you really do have to resolve on screen. 

Browncoat’s Independance Day Celebration

Reposing from kitanzi. Feel free to RSVP here or there.

We still haven’t decided a date for movie night, but we are gonna do a Firefly marathon tomorrow for anyone interested. Not Serenity, Firefly – Wash Lives!

Show up around 11 and we’ll keep running them until everyone’s sick and tired of it! (One cat, no indoor smoking, bring snacks if you want but we will have food – no one’s going hungry in this house if I can help it! 🙂 )

[If you need directions, just drop a note here or email me at autographedcat at gmail dot com.]

Christmas and Me

Last night, thatcrazycajun made a post about his mixed feelings on the holiday season. I’ve been giving this some thought since I read it last night, because I’ve lately been of two minds about Christmas.

I love Christmas. I love the atmosphere it creates. I love winter. I love the lights, and the music, and the sheer joy that permeates every part of it. People are friendlier, and more giving, and more outwardly focused at Christmastime, and I love that.

I should note that I was raised agnostic. I’ve never had a deep, personal, spiritual relationship with the Christmas season, so my love for the holiday doesn’t have to get tangled up with how I feel about the actual implications of Christological mythology.

At the same time, I feel a little empty at Christmas, because Christmas is so very much about family, and mine isn’t here. It seems I never have the luxury of time to go and visit mine during the holidays, and even if I could, it’s been over a decade since my grandfather, the axis around which my entire family world revolved when I was a child, passed away. My cousins all have children, and have begun to spin their own family worlds, and having been absent the last 20 years, I’m not really a part of it.

Some years ago, I went to pick khaosworks up from bedlamhouse and ladyat‘s home on Christmas Day. I arrived as the family gift exchange was in full swing, and so I stood and watched a while waiting for Terence to be done. And watching it made me feel…not bad, really…but somehow that while I was certainly welcome to be there, I wasn’t really a part of what was going on. I was an observer, not a participant. And I realised at that moment what I deeply, truly, achingly missed from my own life — that sense of total belonging. I’m not entirely sure I feel it anywhere, any more.

kitanzi and I have our own little Christmas traditions. We’re low-key people, and we do low-key things. But there’s a part of me that really misses the noisy, warm, chaotic love of Christmas morning with the whole family gathered for food and gifts and running around the yard.

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

How To Wrap A Cat For Christmas

This is delightful. I’m now ready for Christmas

(h/t elgecko

Long weekends, much to do…

Due to the timing of the holidays this year, I have three long weekends in a row, of which this is the middle one. Last weekend, of course, was Christmas, which featured a lovely Orphan’s Dinner at Alice’s (where, I have it from reliable sources, you can get everything you want — excepting Alice), which featured marvelous food, and great conversation. It did mean we skipped out on our Christmas Day tradition of going to see a movie, but that’s ok. I need to work on being more social anyway, and this was a lovely way to do it.

This weekend is even more quiet. Ever since bedlamhouse and ladyat moved to Indiana, we just haven’t felt drawn to any of the varied New Year’s gatherings. So we spent New Year’s Eve at home, watching TV and playing video games. We’ve just recently wrapped up season one of NBC’s marvelous police drama Life, which my darling sweetmusic_27 turned me onto some while ago and we finally got around to watching. Today, i went for a haircut and a massage, and then dropped by Fry’s to pick up season two (alas, the final season…sometimes, I think it’s better if shows get canceled *before* I really get into them. I feel less guilty that way). So that will probably fill our spare viewing time coming up.

Next weekend is Gafilk, and I’m both ready for it to be here already and panicking that there’s just not enough time. Truth told, pretty much what can be done has been done, and there’s nothing left to do now but show up and play the music. I’m really looking forward to it!

New Years Wish

I posted this last year, and I think it still applies. There are many New Year’s wishes. This one is mine.

Hello, and welcome to 2008.

In 2008, may you spend more time looking forward, not looking back.

In 2008, may you spend more time making grand plans and executing them, inviting your soul and being creative, and living life to the fullest.

In 2008, may you spend more time doing small, special things for your friends, your family, your loved ones.

In 2008, may you spend more time laughing, and making music, and increasing the joy in the people around you.

In 2008, may you spend more time helping each other, and holding each other, and saying “I love you” to each other.

Best wishes to you all. The best is yet to be.

Fairytale of a fairytale

Everyone has a favourite Christmas song.  Mine is “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.

The BBC news site has a nice article about the song..  Thanks to kitanzi for sending me the link.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Today, our friends in the UK celebrate Guy Fawkes day, a holiday that most Americans find confusing because, near as they can figure, English history starts in 1585 and largely ends in 1814.

Luckily, scarletdemon wrote a lovely treatise on the history of the occasion a couple of years ago, and it’s still there for you to enjoy now.

In 1605, English Catholics were angry that they did not have equal rights, so their leader (Pope Trevor the Third) signed what Catholics call a “Fatwa” and sent it to Guy Fawkes to be carried out. Fawkes assembled a band of like-minded terrorists and they decided to assassinate King James I, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy, in one fell swoop, by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. They saw themselves as soldiers of fortune, helping people in need. But who were these desperate men? Guy Fawkes had chosen some of the best minds in pyrotechnic history: Himself, George Handel, Arthos, Porthos, Shakespeare, Dogtanian and fuse specialist Artemis Richlieu. Their famous cry of “Penny For The Guy And One For All!” has become a regular catch-phrase for children begging outside corner-shops (with their Guy Fawkes effigies), even today.

Go read the whole post. It’s delightful stuff.

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