Mr. Laid Back

There are, of course, two Christmases in the US, one secular and one religious. How and why this happened is irrelevant to this post.

We should all know what the religious Christmas is and that it starts December 25th. The secular Christmas starts after Thanksgiving and revolves around the holiday experience itself, that is, the shopping, the winter season, family meetings, Santa Claus, mistletoe and all that jazz. It can definitely get all confused.

But where the two mix themselves up the most is in the music. Radio stations and "albums" have long been an alternating assortment of songs referencing Jesus' birth followed by the violent death of a family member at the hands of semi-domesticated hoofed thugs.

Kind of drives me nuts. At least stick with a theme. Play a series of Jesus-referencing songs in a row between commercial breaks, then maybe go secular, but don't go back and forth. Too "schizophreniac" for me.

At any rate, Andy Williams and Perry Como have long been associated with Christmas music. I kind of posted about Mr. Andy previously. So, listening to some old Christmas albums last night on the turntable, and hearing some of his songs, I got to thinking about Perry Como. I realized I didn't know a lot about him, other than he was very popular and thought of as casual and relaxed.

Which made me think of what follows. This was from the early 1980s. One of the funniest sketches ever on SCTV, which just so happens to be one of my favorite shows ever. That's Eugene Levy as Perry. And check out John Candy.