Ba-Doop-Ba-Doo...

Santa Baby? Naw. That's so last year...literally. Did you think I'd say something so blonde if it wasn't literal?

We used to have Christmas parties every single year, where all the piano nerds/kids-who-didn't-care-to-pretend,-just-doing-it-for-their-parents-to-ogle-at-and-snap-holiday-pictures-like-paparazzi got together and make fun sport hackneying "Jingle Bells," "Deck the Halls," and, Lord help us if someone brought it out, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

And a par-tridge in a pear treeeeeeeeee.

Of course, whenever I played, I'd try something off-beat, the lesser-known stuff. Even some Hannukah songs about dreidels and Shalom, even though I'm not Jewish, just to stir things up a bit. And then we would get together for punch and cookies like little chubby five-year-olds. Luckily, it ended this year with the old teacher moving out of town.

But this is quite cynical of me, no? Heartless, maybe? Criticizing a little kids' tradition, say you? Grinch, I am?

Or Yoda?

Well, perhaps. Christmas isn't Christmas without the traditional music. In fact, solo piano with its fair share of wrong notes would do a world better than some mall/supermarket "atmosphere." I have heard "I'll be Home for Christmas" murdered four times in a row in one night, first by sloppy decapitation (taking twelve swings to finish the job), then by wild stabbing, next by a hit-and-run, and finally, by a merciful gunshot to the head. The gunman was the best.

Yep. Christmas music has become clichéd, whether we like it or not. What happened to the carolers in their humble groups, "a-wassailing," making real music with the real spirit? What happened to the children's church choirs, making real music in all of the season's holiness?

Well, we just have to look in the right places, I suppose. They say Christmas is everywhere - I say it's in little dabbles. Your ears just have to be tuned to the right wavelength to cut the static.