Christmas Music Contradiction

Christmas itself is passed, but I think that by most people’s accounting, we are still in the Christmas season (although Christmas music is no longer being played on the radio).

One popular modern Christmas song is “Please Come Home for Christmas”, the first version of which was sung by Charles Brown in 1960.  It has since been recorded by musicians ranging from Willie Nelson to Kelly Clarkson, but the most famous version, which I hear every year, was released in 1978 by the Eagles.  

  There is a huge internal contradiction in the lyrics that bothers me every time that I hear it.  

Starting with the first four lines of the song, we have:

  Bells will be ringing this sad sad news

  Oh what a Christmas to have the blues

  My baby’s gone I have no friends

  To wish me greetings once again

Then we get to lines ten and eleven:

  Friends and relations send salutations 

  Sure as the stars shine above

  But how can friends send salutations to the narrator of the song if, as we learned in the third line, HE HAS NO FRIENDS??!?

And Soon It Will Be Christmas

It will be Christmas again soon, when I like to think that everyone can just fall down into the holiday and rest.  

I need a Christmas picture, but the best that I could find was the above.  It shows some pyracantha berries.  Is that Christmassy? It would be better if they were holly berries, but I couldn’t find any holly berries to photograph.  

Let’s all pretend that they’re holly berries.

And, if you have any spare time, read (or re-read) my classic Christmas post from 2012.

Dramatic Sky Pictures

Is it too soon for more dramatic sky pictures? 

Over the years I have taken many pictures like this, particularly in the area of Alexandria along Holmes Run between Duke Street and Eisenhower Avenue, which has very few buildings that block the view of the sky.  

The camera made these three scenes darker and more orange than they were in real life.