Stop the madness!

I was so decidedly un-curmudgeonly this year that I relaxed my restriction on Christmas carols being played before the first of December, and allowed—nay, encouraged—the Mont to play a few on the car radio the day after Thanksgiving. Almost immediately, however, I wished I hadn’t, because I heard a song on the traditional Christmas station that set my teeth on edge. It wasn’t that horrible Gayla Peevey song about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas, though that might have done the job, too. No, it was perfectly respectable, boozy Dean Martin, singing the Irving Berlin standard, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”

Now, I’m aware that the religious carols have a lot more material at hand, with Christmas being a religious holiday, nominally at least. Religious carols have an entire cast of exotic characters going for them, from round yon virgins to the infant holy infant lowly. There’s the we three kings and Harold the harking angel and the heavenly host, whom I always imagine to be like a particularly friendly karaoke host, only sparklier. Christmas carols have a huge cast of supporting players that would make Cecil B. DeMille envious—from the little drummer boy and the busy innkeeper to people who never appear again anywhere in Biblical literature, like Jeanette and Isabella and some dude named Emmanuel. (What’s he’s coming, o coming for, anyway? Dessert?)

Secular Christmas songs, on the other hand, I feel sorry for. They’ve got their songs about Santa, who’s either admonishing children to watch out and not cry, or who’s coming down the chimney or making out with some kid’s mom, or running over grandma with his reindeer. They’ve got the songs about bells—silver, jingling, and ring-ting-ringling, too. And then they’ve got the songs about snow. I know there are scant pickings for the secular carol writers. But I’m sorry, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” is going too far.

Yes, I know it’s been included on several Christmas albums, including by Dean Martin and Tony Bennet and even Bette Midler. Yes, I know that Irving Berlin is America’s beloved composer of “White Christmas” and that the song even concludes the stage musical version of the same name. But you know White Christmas the musical (and movie) also includes “Sisters,” and you don’t see Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga performing a very special holiday rendition of that on The NBC Paris Hilton Holiday Cavalcade, do you?

I’m also thoroughly aware that I’m willing to accept songs about cold weather as traditional holiday songs. I have no qualms about “Sleigh Ride,” for example, particularly if it’s Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme’s whip-cracking S&M version with Eydie’s maniacal laughter. (By the way, the LP in the background of that YouTube video, Goodyear's Great Songs of Christmas Album 5, is probably my favorite Christmas album ever. My parents got a free copy with a fill-up of gas in 1965, and I still have it. I wish it were available on CD.) I’m not even vaguely bothered by the inclusion of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in the repertoire, although watching Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson mug their way through it traumatized me a little, a few years ago.

But “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”? I’m sorry. It was written for On the Avenue, which has nothing to do with Christmas at all. I suppose I draw the line here: if I’m likely to hear the song sung in a karaoke bar in mid-March without irony, it doesn’t belong on a holiday playlist. Do we really want to lump all songs including any cold-weather metaphors in the Christmas bins? Really?

Because it’s a slippery slope, my friends, and those of you who are rolling your eyes and saying to yourselves, Good lord, it’s just a song, get over it! are going to be regretting your leniency in another thirty years when the hottest pop star of 2040 is duetting with a gray and grizzled Adam Lambert in a holiday rendition of Madonna’s “Frozen,” and the Rockettes are doing a kick-line in Santa hats and fuzzy red boots to Radio City Music Hall’s grand finale of “Ice, Ice Baby.” Mark my words.

Well-baked

Wednesday morning I noticed that Fred had disappeared. Usually when I’m working, in cooler weather, she’ll stake her claim on my belly. There she can warm herself while simultaneously monitoring the squirrels on the deck, from the comfort of the sofa and my midsection.Trust me, when she’s not around, I really notice that missing twelve pounds of compact tabby.

Her absence didn’t concern me much at first. I did my work in the morning, ate lunch, and puttered around for a little while after. At that point, I realized that I’d not seen Fred in hours. So I checked her usual haunts—the niche behind the curtain where she can spy on the squirrels, the cubby beneath the sofa where she can nap in peace. She wasn’t there.

Nor was she in any of the places she goes to hide when she’s frightened of something—beneath the basement stairs, or in the crawl space beneath our den. I was beginning to panic when at last I spied a lump beneath the covers, on our bed. When I pulled them up slightly, I found her blinking back at me. She’d managed to nose back both blankets so she could crawl underneath. Between the fleece sheets (yes, I have fleece sheets in winter. It’s Michigan. What of it?) she’d snoozed for hours. Since I didn’t have a compelling reason to interrupt her, I let her slumber on.

She was still there when the Mont came home a few hours later. And she didn’t emerge until five-thirty, when we were about to leave the house for dinner. Her tail was in the air. Her fur crackled with static electricity from the sheets. She practically radiated steam as she wandered, well-baked and hot to the touch, into the den after her nine-hour nap. Did I miss anything? she seemed to be asking, as she prickled her nose in our direction.

God. I wish I could be a cat, some days.