Monday, December 17, 2012

music edition

There are angels harking and heralding here. The boys' piano teacher asks each student to learn a carol to share at a party together. Since they need lots of time to learn new pieces, this means that the holiday music started immediately after Thanksgiving. I am grateful to her for waiting that long.

Bug has come on a midnight clear. It is less than glorious without his forgotten B flat.

Pook has been the one harking. ("Hark!" Harold the Angel sings, "I have lost my purple crayon. I have fed a deserving moose. And a hungry porcupine. I have fallen off a mountain. Cuz I forgot to draw the other side.")

But, they don't want to be recorded and posted here, so to comply with A-L's blog chain, I must discuss a different piece of holiday music.

Once I was in a crowded school cafeteria which was suddenly transformed as a parade of white clad kindergarteners surrounded the room, singing Silent Night in their tiny five-year-old voices. I can barely write about it without tearing up.  But everyone loves Silent Night, so today I will choose The Grinch.

Someday I'd like to memorize all the lyrics; they're so wonderful. Dr. Seuss freed me to sing with my kids. He taught me that if I forget the words, I can make up new. If I don't have a rhyme, I can make one up.


You're a mean one, Mr Grinch
You really are a heel
You’re as cuddly as a cactus
You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch
You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch
Your Hearts an empty hole
Your brain is full of spiders
You’ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch
I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty nine and a half foot pole

You’re a vile one, Mr. Grinch
You have termites in your smile
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Grinch
Given the choice between the two of you I’d take the a seasick crocodile

You’re a foul one, Mr. Grinch
You’re a nasty wasty skunk
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Grinch
The three words that best describe you, are as follows, and I quote: Stink, Stank, Stunk

You’re a rotter, Mr. Grinch
You’re the king of sinful sots
Your hearts a dead tomato
Splotched with moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch
Your sole is an appalling dump heap
Overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch
With a nauseous super naus
You’re a crooked jerky jockey and you drive a crooked horse Mr. Grinch
You’re a three decker sauerkraut and toad stool sandwich
With arsenic sauce! 
Each year, as a kid, I'd look forward to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas when it was on TV. We own it,  so our kids could potentially watch it anytime, but they keep it a once-a-year tradition too.  My favorite character isn't the Grinch; it's Cindy Lou Who, (who was no more than two) who is the only one to catch the guy in action and question him.


During this happy, festive, put-a-smile-on-your-face season, I can't help but like the Grinch. Charles Dickens personified the feeling in Ebenezer Scrooge, but we can't identify with him without really putting ourselves down. Scrooge is as financially stingy as emotionally stingy perhaps. The Grinch made being crabby during the holidays funny.  This weekend I will attend three different holiday parties on three different nights and I will smile. I will push down any inner Grinchiness and get into the spirit.



The blog chain is as follows. Come visit the rest of the list as they tell about their favorite holiday music too.

Harriet at spynotes
Hugh at Permanent qui vive
Jeanne at Necromancy never pays
Cranky at It’s My Blog!
Dr. Geek at Dr. Geek’s Laboratory
Lemming at Lemming’s Progress
Readersguide at Reader’s Guide to…
Freshhell at Life in Scribbletown
edj3 at kitties kitties kitties
My Kids’ Mom at Pook and Bug
joyhowie at The Crooked Line
Magpie at Magpie Musing
Dave at The Ideal Dave
and back to Harriet at spynotes

15 comments:

  1. At my house, we have a particular fondness for singing the Grinch song...it works so well with our last name.

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  2. I LOVE the Grinch. He captures the season for me.

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    1. And I know what you mean, without feeling negative towards the season.

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  3. See, what I think of when I think of the grinch is the hymn: Da hoo dorais, fa hoo dorais, welcome Christmas, C hristmas day...

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    1. Actually, that is more likely to get stuck in my head than the Grinch song, but I just like the lyrics so much I had to choose it.

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  4. Love the Grinch. Love love love. Amazingly, which we own the Charlie Brown holiday trifecta dvds, we don't own the Grinch and we should. Mainly because the tv version is shortened, sped up and filled with commercials now. It's the Grinchy version of the Grinch.

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    1. We don't own Charlie Brown anything, and have trouble catching it/them. Maybe we should invest this year.... The ones we recorded ourselves are awful to watch; the little icons at the bottom of the screen advertising other shows drive me batty.

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  5. The Grinch rules! I wish Dr. Seuss had written alternate lyrics for ALL the Advent and Christmas music.

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    1. I'm pretty good at making up my own lyrics to all of them. (See Harold, above.) I'm just pretty bad at memorizing lyrics to songs I only sing one season a year.

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  6. My favorite lines from the Grinch's song? "Stink, stank, stunk!"

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  7. For several years, I've had the pleasure to sing the Grinch song with the Boston Pops at our Holiday Pops concerts -- we didn't do it this year, and I've missed it. Thanks for the video, and in exchange let me recommend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZsYRjg378.

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    1. That was a fun giggle for me and the kids! I'm in awe that you've sung with the Pops, but AL has so many amazingly musical friends that I shouldn't be surprised! Thanks to her for starting this blog chain.

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