I wish it was Christmas today.

Another year, another Christmas Eve.

I will discuss the entire two days on Saturday for now I wanted to write about a song a friend of mine posted on his Christmas Song blog.

The song is called 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses. Apparently they were a new wave band in the early 80s who, in 1981, released this song. The title is referencing the recent spotlight on rap music - the vocal style is similar to rapping it is melodic talking in rhyme. Thus the title, with a holiday spin on the term is titled as such.

In 6th or 7th grade, this was our song for music class. Every year there was a holiday show where each grade would go up on stage in our gym and perform in front of all the parents. Most of us hated it for various reasons - the songs were never the better ones, the dance moves were cheesy, and it is a lot of pressure to stand up there with hundreds of parents taking pictures and filming you.

Anyway, i can still remember the day we were handed the lyrics sheets. Before starting the song, our teacher, Mrs. Coughlin, asked us to please locate in the 3rd (or 4th - i forget) verse the profane word and scribble it out. It is Catholic school, after all. The line we were to edit was 'Oh damn, guess what i forgot.' We replaced the DAMN with DARN. I have always remembered this song and this edit we had to make. It must have something to say about the song because I don't remember a single song from any of the other years.

I still think we should have replaced DAMN with MAN. Sing it/sound it out - Oh man! guess what i forgot sounds a lot more like the original line without changing the context of the line, than Oh darn!

Also, this is one of the very rare Christmas songs that falls into the category of uncovered classic. I am not claiming that no one has ever made a cover of this song but of all the Christmas songs that stand out to people - the ones you will hear on the radio, most of the old ones have numerous versions. I am pretty sure Oh Holy Night will take the cake for most covered. But somehow, despite this song being played every year, hearing it on the radio at some point over the season, there only seems to be one version - the original. There are few other solid Christmas songs that are not covered. Maybe I'm wrong - if so - name some.

I guess its reflected in that this song is one of those ones no one knows anything about. They'll recognize it when it is on but I'm sure most of you do not even know what song I am talking about, yet if you heard it - you would recognize it.

Pictures tonight are of my street/house. Our entire street from end to end (about 100 houses in total) put out white bags with sand and candles lining our front yards - it essentially creates 'a runway for santa so he can find out street and land safely'. It's a pretty amazing thing to drive through.

Anyway - Merry Christmas everyone!