The Ricochet Podcast - Have Yourself a Merry Little Podcast

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

We end our podcasting year with a special edition of the Ricochet Podcast as James Lileks takes you through the Christmas memory book. So gather 'round the hearth and revel in our gift to you. Merry Christmas and we'll see you in the New Year.

We mark the festival of Christmas, which is the most sacred and hopeful day in our civilization. For nearly 2,000 years, the message of Christmas, the message of peace and goodwill towards all men, has been the guiding star of our endeavors. The spirit of Christmas is measured by the love that each of us has in his heart for his family, for his friends, for his fellow Americans, and for people all over the world. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lylex, and I'm here with you. It's just the two of us rambling about Christmas. So let's have ourselves a merry little podcast, shall we? For many of us, Christmas is a deeply holy day.

Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 671. I'm James Lylex, and I'm joined by no one. First of all, because I'm not falling apart, but secondly, because Peter and Rob are off doing holiday things, and I thought, you know, we could just take a week off. But on the other hand, who knows what you're doing, making cookies, wrapping presents, tidying up the house for the kids coming home from college, any number of things. And you want something to listen to. Why not give you a Ricochet podcast? Because otherwise, what are you going to do? You're going to turn on Spotify and hear the same carols over and over and over again, unless it's your favorite one that you really want to hear, but we'll get to that.

I just have to say, though, that in the history of podcasts, this is probably one with the absolute shortest shelf life. I mean, oh, you can go back to the 200s and 300s of Ricochet and see what Peter and Rob and myself were talking about. Some terribly important moment in the Obama administration. I'm sure people want to resurrect that and listen to that, but probably not. Punditry is a very short shelf life, unless you get it right. I mean, if you get something really right, you can dine off that for an awful long time. There was a guy named Criswell. You may have heard of Criswell, perhaps.

He was one of those predictors, one of those guys who'd show up on LATV or in the newspaper, like Gene Dixon. You know, how these people ever managed to keep a job, I have no idea, because every week they would make a series of predictions. But some of them would be vague enough and sort of a blind item in a Winchell column. But Criswell nailed one, and I can't remember what it was. He may have called JFK's unfortunate appointment in Dallas, whatever it was, his name was made for a while. And it's like Criswell, maybe this guy really can predict the future. Of course, nobody believed it, but it got him some publicity and it earned him the opening spot in Ed Wood's plan nine from outer space. That's right. Criswell is the guy at the desk telling us

that we're going to be very interested in the future because the future is where we will spend the rest of our lives. Great Ed Wood stuff. So if you're Criswell and you get one right, then maybe your punditry will last. But otherwise, probably not, especially if you're talking about Christmas.

The most wonderful time of the year. the day we all look forward to, the whole month leads up to it, and then there's just something about the 26th, of course, you really don't want to hear about Christmas anymore. I mean, the message of carrying through the whole year, yes, yes, yes, I know that. But the day after, maybe i'm just remembering as a kid when it just the world seems flat the air had gone out of the tire and all the decorations

are still on the tree and the house is still bedecked for it and you're still in that christmas spirit they may be still playing some of the tunes on the radio maybe i don't know. For me, you know, Christmas night, the end of Christmas, when everything beneath the tree is bare and you've put the last wrapping paper into the fireplace and stirred it with the poker, which, by the way, we were informed when we were growing up, you were not supposed to burn the paper. Couldn't figure out why.

Well, we like to burn the paper. Couldn't figure out why. Well, we liked to burn the paper. We had a fireplace, which was used once a year at our little ranch, Rambler in Fargo, North Dakota, built in 1962, turquoise siding, fake flagstone out front, loved that house. And we would burn the paper. And we also had these little wax things you would throw in the fire and they would make the fire supposedly glow variety of colors. the christmas fire was a very important thing it was fun and you could throw the paper in and we were told not to by the authorities for two reasons one that sparks might fly that people that pieces of paper might float out and light on something flammable and the next thing you know you're that family that's in the paper the next day standing outside their house as the firemen try to put out the blaze uh the other reason was we were told was that the paper contained lead.

Well, everything contained lead back then. It didn't make it special, but I guess that was part of the problem. You throw some of this fancy flocked paper in there, and it's got lead and asbestos and chlorine and the rest of it. The next thing you know, you're gassing the family and doing their DNA solidity for the next 15 years. So we weren't supposed to do that. But to this day, I like to burn the wrapping paper,

except for the stuff, of course, my wife has set aside to be reused. Now, you may be like this. You may have a spouse who's like this. My mother was like this. My mother would watch you very carefully as you unwrapped your presents because you wanted to just rip them open, right? Didn't you't you just wanted to rip and tear and see what was inside there but you know that

paper could be reused my mother who grew up in a farm in the depression didn't grow up hungry but nevertheless you know she was frugal so there would be boxes saved there would be wrapping paper that could be saved and ironed and clipped and used again. So over the years, I realized that mom didn't want me to do that. And I took the packages apart very, very carefully. So it's the end of Christmas. It's the end of the 25th. And as I said, the tree is denuded.

All the packages beneath it are no longer there. They've been distributed throughout the house. There's still sort of remnant boxes here and there. And there's something playing on the radio and the fire is dying down and you're thinking that it's been a good it's been it's been a good christmas you think and it's odd that you have that feeling at the end of christmas day it's odd that you have that feeling after the guests have gone and you've done that minnesota thing where you stand at the door and talk forever. Is that what it's like when you are where you are? Something about my culture. If people are going to go, they just don't go. First, you move to the door, which is sort of a staging area where the men fiddle with their hats

and gloves and the women talk about whatever they didn't get to talk about in the course of the dinner. And then maybe, perhaps, if they're really into it, you move to the car. And the father, the dad, the guy fires up the car, and the women continue having a conversation at the window. And if it's particularly cold, it might last only five or ten minutes or so. It's all begun at a moment of the 25th at the dinner when the men push back from the table and slap their thighs and say, well, that is the sign that it's time to start to wind it down. Well, and that, you know, you got 30 minutes left before you're going to get out of the house.

You got to get the leftovers. They have to give you the cookies, right? They have to find something to put the cookies in. And then, of course, you're in conversation at the door, the conversation at the car, and eventually you get home. And the person who's left at home is standing there at the end, on the 25th, looking at the tree without the presents and the fire dying down. And maybe hearing a Christmas carol drifting from the Panasonic radio in the kitchen. And thinking it's odd that it all seems over because this right here the evening is when it all began right i mean if the story goes jesus was born on the 25th at night because it was dark and shepherds were tending their flocks by night and there was a star and all the right that would be

the 25th that would be the that would be now, Christmas night, when everything seems over, is when everything, everything actually began. But the dates, you know, we don't know. If you grow up Lutheran, you may be convinced that Jesus was born on the 24th because we had a song called, I am so glad each Christmas Eve, I am, I am so glad each Christmas Eve, the night of Jesus' birth. And I sang that over and over and over throughout my childhood without ever putting two and two together. Wait a minute here. Hold on. I am so glad each Christmas Eve, the night of Jesus' birth, the 24th, not the 20th. So what's tomorrow then exactly? Maybe it happened in, I don't know, 1201, 1202.

Do we know? We don't know. Anyway, it's a strange song to sing. But we had to sing it every single year at the one of two Lutheran churches that I ended up going to. One was Elam. That was the home church, the home base. That's where you went. That's where, One was Elam. That was the home church, the home base. That's where you went. That was your place. That was the one where when you were a kid, you went to Sunday school,

you ran around in the church basement while the adults after church had their weak Lutheran coffee. Translucent, you could see right through it, but man, you could drink gallons of that stuff. Or we would go to Christmas at the farm church. Now, as I mentioned, my mother grew up on a farm and my father grew up in the rural area too, but they didn't have a farm. They worked for farms. They got put to this house

and that house and this house and that house because they were poor. But they all went to Maple Cheyenne, which is this clapboard ancient church on the edge of the prairieirie beyond which it just stretches forever. And you have to know how to get there. The roads to get there are absolutely straight because when

they laid everything out, they laid out straight. That's it. Rectangular farmland, farmland, school land, church land, and the rest of it. But there's one beautiful little curved road that takes you to Maple Cheyenne. When you get there, it is not an impressive place. You walk inside and you look at the roof and you see that's pressed tin that they got out of a Sears catalog. Well, they didn't have a lot of money, the pioneers building this place, but eventually they did. Eventually they could afford a stained glass window. Eventually one of the stained glass windows was put in commemorating one of the early, early members of the church my great great grandfather who was notable for leaving the farm during a snowstorm around the time of christmas getting lost he's trying to

bring the cows in couldn't find his way back to the house in the storm had to they had to sleep inside a dead cow for the night star war style you know when luke did that great tale um hardy people hardy hardy people and so that church had a different aspect the elam lutheran church where we went that was fargo that was cosmopolitan but out here were the farmers and i never knew which exactly one my dad preferred my My dad loved Christmas. He absolutely adored it. And yeah, he'd rip open his packages. He loved to see what we could have because I said he grew up poor. And he loved to give his children the fruits of his success. And he loved Christmas music. As a matter of fact, I remember the 25th when the tree is empty of presents and the fire is dying out that my father could frequently be found in the kitchen with the Tom and Jerry's listening to the last Christmas carol because that was the last time at which they really would seem to fit.

And he said once, I wish they would play Christmas music all year long and i say you know dad no then it would lose its power it would lose its its strength its specialness or would it don't know it meant something to him i know that when he uh you know when he was a kid growing up in various impoverished situations there wasn't a you know phonograph they could crank up and play the Bing Crosby and the old tunes. There was probably a radio, but I don't know how much Christmas music they pulled in. They didn't have any instruments. Maybe one of his 12 siblings could say something on a mouth harp or a guitar. I don't know. But one of the stories that my father told me about his first christmas away from north dakota was when he was 16 and he was in world war ii and he was on a sub chaser in the caribbean

the caribbean you never think about that you think the pacific you think the atlantic but no he joins up at the age of 15 to go fight because uh his brother his twin had just died and he wanted to get out of there. And so when he was 15 years old, he goes and he says, I'd like to sign up. And he brought his father to lie to say, yeah, he's 16. Yeah, he can go. And his father, as a matter of fact,

signed up at the same time that my father did. Story in the Fargo Forum, father and son off to war. Isn't that great, heroic? Except the father was something of a ne'er-do-well and was trying to get out of his 12, 13 children obligation. Scallywag, never met him because he was divorced while he was away. Scoundrel. Pity too, because he had a great last, great first name, Sam. Would have loved to have a son named Sam, but nobody ever had a son named Sam in the Ladlicks family. Anyway, my dad goes off to war and he's in the Caribbean for his first Christmas away from home. And it's hot and it's humid. And his job is to stand there on the deck and look for fish.

And by fish, I don't mean aquatic creatures that leap out cartoon-like like Mr. Limpet. I mean, the little telltale ripple in the water that tells you that there's a torpedo coming your way. That's Christmas. And after his shift was over, he stuck around for a little while and played Christmas tunes on his harmonica to entertain everybody else. Because, of course, you know, when you're leaving North Dakota to go to war, you always think, well, I got to pack my own or Marine Band harmonica. So we did. And he stood there and played Silent Night on Christmas in the Caribbean as the young men watched the water for the signs that a torpedo was coming to kill them all.

But the good news is, when he finally saw one, he could get the message to the bridge in time. But that was after Christmas. Maybe that was the 26th or 27th. I have no such tales like that to tell because I grew up in a land that my father, at the time that my father and their generation built. Lucky me.

What I do have here, however, is a question for you. And it's this. Now, Christmas music, we'll all be tired of it a little bit, right? But for now, I don't know about you, I put it off. I try not to listen to any Christmas music whatsoever. As the years go by, you find two things happen. Three things, maybe. I just made that up. Better come up with three. The first is,

I have absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for modern Christmas music of any kind. It is absolutely empirically true that we live in an era of meretricious pop music, where virtually nothing that is being made today is authentic. It is created by robots. It is auto-tuned. It is hammered together by the cynical and the bass heavy and the A musical and the rest of it. And I just don't like it. No, sir, don't like it. Not for me, but I'm correct. I mean, we all know that as you get old, you just don't like modern music anymore, but we're lucky in that modern music is, as I said, demonstrably empirically in superior to that of our youth. It's a fact. So I don't like modern Christmas music, but I don't even like the modern Christmas music of my youth. Jingle Bell Rock is an utterly inane song. Rocking around the Christmas tree. I say this every year. How do you rock around a

Christmas tree? I don't know how you do that uh if it's in the corner that's a tight squeeze i don't even know what rocking exactly is it's just one of the little novelty songs that they did and has stuck with us forever that thing had a shelf life of about two years tops but no we got to listen to this boomer stuff forever three um i have a particular affection as do boomers of my generation for bur Burl Ives, probably a commie, who sang a couple of Christmas songs. And every time I hear them, just take me absolutely back to the age of eight, eight, nine, ten. Why? Because Rudolph. Because of Rudolph. Right. I think I'm pretty sure of this.

Owen Bradley was the guy who was behind that Burl Ives Christmas music album. Holly Jolly. And the connection between Holly Jolly Christmas and Rudolph, we all know. We all grew up with it. We all couldn't wait. It was one of the things with Charlie Brown and Grinch that absolutely made Christmas for us. But there was something special about the Rudolph one

because it had peril. It had a story in it. And the older that I get that I listen to it, all of the songs in the Rudolph special are fantastic. They're all great. Johnny Marks, I think. But from a modern perspective, it is a bit of a strange show, is it not? For one thing, Santa Claus is an absolute tiresome pill.

When we first meet, he's cranky. He really doesn't want to do this. The elves have been practicing this show for God knows how long, and they put it on for him, and Mrs. Claus gets him together, and he sits there, and he rolls his eyes, and he's obviously tired. He doesn't want to see this sort of thing, so he's a bad boss. And then when he goes to see Rudolph, who's just been born, and he walks into this cave where the reindeer parents are staying, the cave is absolutely undecorated. So you get the sense that he's not paying these guys anything. There's no lamps.

There's no pictures. It's just a bare cave with his kid bouncing around it. And what does Santa do? He sings a song about himself. I am old Chris Kringle, which, you know, she's just given birth. She's got a new kid. And he shows up and he starts singing about himself. That's the kind of guy Santa is in the Rudolph special.

And also this about the Rudolph thing is that that was stop motion, right? Well, there was another stop motion ad that they would put in that. And it was an electric shaver, Norelco, I believe, which had a stop motion Santa who was riding a Norelco razor around the snow. And it seemed as if this was part of the Rudolph verse, if you will. And we loved it when there were commercial tie-ins to Christmas because it was, wow, the commercials are getting the Christmas spirit as well. Well, I mean, this being Ricochet, I was being good capitalist. We have commercials for you here too.

And I want to tell you something here that may not, you know, it's not going to show up in time for Christmas, but it's going to show up in time to make somebody's day. Absolutely fantastic. I am at this moment wearing the product that I'm about to tell you about. It's Rhone. Rhone. What's R-H-O-N by the way. Clothing.

And the clothing is kept where? In the closet. In men's closets. Ah, by the way. Clothing. And the clothing is kept where? In the closet. And men's closets? Ah, they can be kind of sad. Yeah, they're due for a radical reinvention, right? Well, Roan has stepped up to the challenge. Roan's commuter collection is the most comfortable, breathable, and flexible set of products known to man.

And here is why. One, they have a product for every occasion. Roan helps you get ready for any occasion with the commuter collection, which offers the world's most comfortable pants and dress shirts, quarter zips, and polos. You never have to worry about what to wear when you have the Roan commuter collection. And trust me, they're good for parties, too. I'm not talking about you got to wear these on the train. No, you can wear these to your best Christmas parties. Two, mobility, it's everything.

Roan's comfortable four-way stretch fabric provides breathability and flexibility and leaves you free to enjoy what life throws you away from your commute, your work, your 18 holes of golf, if that's what you do. Three, looking good is easy. It's time to feel confident without hassle. With Rhone's wrinkle

release technology, wrinkles disappear as you stretch and wear the products. It's that easy. I don't mind irony. I actually kind of like it, but with these, just put them on and I'm good to go. Four, odor-free tech. With gold fusion anti-odor technology, you'll be smelling fresh and clean all day long. And on top of that, Roan is 100% machine washable, so you can ditch the dry cleaner altogether. These are the best pants I have. I love them. They sent them to me and I am a short

guy, right? Five, four, about 130. I never find pants off the rack that fit me. I get stuff that I get online. It never fits me. The Roan, I gave them my measurements. It shows up. They fit like nothing I've ever had before. I'm not going to do a lot of desserts this year because I don't want to grow out of my Rhone's, but if I do, I suppose I could just call them up and give them some more dimensions and those would fit as perfectly as well. Well, the commuter collection, what I wear, can get you through any workday and straight into whatever comes next. Head to rhone.com slash ricochet and use the promo code ricochet to save 20% off your entire

order. That's 20% off your entire order when you head to rhone.com slash ricochet and use the promo code RICOSHAY to save 20% off your entire order. That's 20% off your entire order when you head to rhone.com slash ricochet and use the code RICOSHAY. It's time to find your corner office comfort. And we thank Roan for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now back to the Rudolph thing that I was telling you about. The other thing that we could never figure out when we were a kid was why Yukon Cornelius would lick the end of his pick.

He would throw the thing up in the air and it would land down and he'd lick it and he'd say nuts or something like that. It's because deleted portion of that thing was that Cornelius was a peppermint miner. He was looking for a rich vein of peppermint. And that's why he would lick the end of the end of his pike, his stick, his pickaxe to see his ice axe, whatever killed Trotsky to see whether or not that he'd struck rain. So, but it had

the horrible, horrible moment where Rudolph is going off by himself to fight the abominable snowman. And we think he's going to die. But he doesn't. He gets back and reunited with all those 60s archetypes. You know, the guy who looked like Mel from Dick Van Dyke show, you know, round head, big black glasses,

and Hermie, the little gay dentist, and the rest of it. It's wonderful. So when the Owen Bradley, Holly Jolly music, Burl Ives stuff comes on, that to me is, that's good Christmas music. But then there's the old stuff that preceded me uh the old popular tunes not really too much into the high a little lakamaki whatever christmas whatever that is but you know white christmas of course you love it the great songs of the 60s silver

bells is not a particularly lyrically brilliant song um but it has the wonderful recollected memory of somebody who's not seeing this happen but remembering shoppers were bustling i'll be home for christmas is a song that occasionally can unstring your bow utterly it did to me i was sitting in a bar i know that sounds bad in washington dc while it was in the bottom of my building, a 2000 pen where I worked. It was an Italian restaurant, but they had a bar. And it was right before Christmas. And I wasn't going home for Christmas that year. And it was the first time I'd actually, that song was playing, it was the first time I'd listened to those lyrics. I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams. The first time it struck me, you know, if only in my dreams because previously of course i'll be

home for christmas why wouldn't i be home for christmas vargo is just up the road on i-94 what are the chances they're going to close down the freeway well it happens sometimes the snow is so heavy and so thick that they will close the entrance ramps to I-94. But what if you're already on the highway? You have to keep going. What if it's night? Well, you turn on your brights and you follow the ruts of the cars that came before you to get home.

What if it's snowing a lot? Well, you follow the ruts as best as you can. And eventually, you hope, using your your high beams picking out the reflective markers in the side of the road this obscure path which you no longer see which in the summertime is bone dry and you take it 75 miles an hour absolutely zipping on your way to fargo to home at the end of it which you know has got to be there it always is why wouldn't it be it's always home um at this point your hands and knees on the freeway trusting that home will be at the end of the road and it is until it isn't my mother died my father died and there is no house there is no home for me to go to in Fargo anymore. And that's okay. I've been in

Minneapolis since 1976, except for a brief tour of duty in Washington, DC. And home is now where my daughter comes to be. That's the karma of it all, isn't it? I mean, here, growing up in Fargo, North Dakota, my parents were convinced that that was the place to be. And why did I have to go to Minneapolis? What was in that big, what was in that place really that Fargo didn't have? Oh, they had colleges. Fargo-Moore had had three colleges. And I'd say, well, Minneapolis is a big downtown. Fargo has a big downtown.

Well, it was kind of dying at the time. But anyway, of course, I had to go off to the big city. I had to go off to the Emerald City and make my way. And I was repaid karmically many years later when my daughter did the exact same thing upon graduating from high school, is that she had to go off to the big city and do what she had to do, which was Boston in her case. And I would say, why can't you stay here? We have got a big city. We've got perfectly good colleges. But no, she went. And I'm glad she did because it was good for me and it was good for her and

was absolutely necessary. And now it's all being replayed where she comes home to minneapolis to the house to her room all of us remember going home for christmas after being away right there's a weight there is and i mean w-e-i-g-h-t there is there's a lightness to it there's a joy. There is, and I mean W-E-I-G-H-T. There's a lightness to it. There's a joy that you're coming home. The traditions, you're getting right back into the old groove that you remember. Swedish meatballs and Christmas Eve, we have to have that. The four o'clock candlelight service, we have to have that. At some point, familiarly, we made the shift from Christmas Eve opening to Christmas Day opening.

I'm not sure why. I liked it better that way we were always a christmas eve family but i when i made the change it made christmas day even better um stocking the stuffing yes or you know i still stock my daughter's stuffing sorry stuff my daughter's stocking, spoonerized it there. At one o'clock in the morning after she's gone to bed, and I still put out the cookies and hope the dog doesn't get them. Still do all of these things.

So when you come home for Christmas after being away for an awful long time, there's the familiarity of all the things that you do. There's the songs that everybody played. I insist on playing the Goodyear 1964 and 1965 albums because they are the finest examples of Christmas music ever wrought by the hand of man with the inspiration of God. None better. I mean, you've got, okay, you've got Maurice Chevalier, jolly old Saint Nicholas.

He's kind of funny. You've got Edie Gourmet and Ted, what's his name, singing Sleigh Ride. You have Anna Maria Alberghetti singing. You have Andre Castellanos playing this version of We Three Kings, which is just to this moment, to this day, the recollection of it practically cracks me up and brings me tears. So I will play those things. So my daughter will hear them again, having not heard them for a year because she hasn't been home for a year. So everything on the tree will be familiar. The ornaments, there's a story behind every one of them. I can tell you, we got this one at Disney world. I can tell you, we got that one at Macy's in 1991.

I can tell you, I got that one at element store in Minneapolis in 86. I used to hang it on my door when my, when your mom, when my wife, when she first came to my room, my apartment for Christmas, that was hanging on the door, that little plastic cheap thing. That's why I kept it. There, this little bear.

I got this for opening up a Macy's cart. It's got a little Godiva box that he's holding. There may be a chocolate in there. We don't know. It's about 35 years old. This one right here, that's a Coca-Cola one. Used to be, you pulled that thing back and the mouse would stand up, but it broke, but it's still on there. This right here, child,

I'm ashamed to tell you is, I'm not ashamed, I'm proud, is one that you made when you were four. And I know you're embarrassed by it now, but you shouldn't because it's beautiful. And my mother, until the day she died, hung on the Christmas tree, a drum that I made from a toilet paper tube that had two little Q-tips as drums on it. Because drums and Christmas, natural connection. So my mom never threw that away. I never threw that away from you. All these things abide and collect. And when you come home, you see all the things you haven't thought about for a year.

And you're back. And it's great. It's a connection. And your heart swells. But there's also a weight, a W-E-I-J-H-T to it, because your parents are older, a lot older sometimes. And you think that the house hasn't changed at all. You look around and you say, have these people done anything here? This chair moved since I've been gone.

That picture is the same. That picture was there when I was in kindergarten. And then you go up to your room, which is this memorial to who you used to be. There's books that you had in high school. God, I can't believe the taste you had. There's a picture that you drew. Oh, you're so much better now. There's a bulletin board with all the pictures and the postcards and all these things from previous pursuits.

Oh, gosh, there's a postcard from Japan. I can't even remember if I know any Japanese anymore. And there's this sense that your life was sort of freeze-dried and put on display

in this room. And you sit down at your desk that you sat at for your entire life, and you open up your computer, and of course the computer screen is a window to the world that you occupy now. You can escape through it if you want to, but you're surrounded by where you used to be.

And you know you're going to eventually come here, and you're going to have to empty everything out. And that's the wait. but it's not now. It's not next year, not year after that. We hope no it's Christmas. No, it is Christmas. That's right. It is Christmas, which is why hang on the door. It is a little Santa Claus thing. I can't remember when I bought this years ago, but I made a sort of vow to myself. I'm going to get out the decorations. I'm going to hang this on her door,

and that will be the symbol that Christmas has begun. And so every year I get that out, and I hang it on her door, even though she isn't there yet. But she will be tonight. So that's where I am right. Did I have a third point about Christmas music? Yeah, I think I did.

It was another song. It wasn't we'll be home for Christmas. Yeah, I'll be home for Christmas. It wasn't in the bleak midwinter, which they played the other day thinking that's a Christmas song. Huh? Please. Bleak midwinter around here.

That's about the third week of January. I got your bleak midwinter. No, that's about the third week of January. I got your Bleak Midwinter. No, I think it was Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which is a very adult tune. Works well with small jazz ensembles. Works well with a cello and a small flute. And it has that great yearning moment, which is like all great Christmas music touched with an element of melancholy right i mean you can't tell me that carol of the bells doesn't have some melancholy to it even though it's a very vigorous song and it is by the way a ukrainian carol carol of the bells is a

ukrainian folk song it's about a bird that flies into the room um but that have yourself but have yourself a merry little christmas we'll muddle through until next year. 1944 was when that song came out. Next year, we may all be together. 1944. You're thinking 1945, it'll be over and everybody will be home. 1945, as it happens, my father did make it home from his long and perilous time in the Caribbean. And then in the Pacific, you know, he traded ships with a guy.

They could do that. The guy wanted to swap assignments. So my dad went to the Block Island, and the other guy went to the Indianapolis. My dad was supposed to be on the Indianapolis. But he wasn't. So he got home. And they had themselves a merry little Christmas. And when I hear that song play, I think that that's all I really want out of it.

Not a big one anymore. No. People will be over. It'll be fine. We're going to have a great meal. Give gifts. People will be over. It'll be fine. We're going to have a great meal. Give gifts. That'll be fine. But I just want a merry

little Christmas. And it's not hard to have a merry little Christmas, even if you're by yourself on Christmas Day eating a Salisbury steak lean cuisine, which I have done for reasons. It's still Christmas, and there's still something in the season and the meaning and the history and the memories to find and kindle in your heart.

So I am going to have a merry little Christmas and I expect you to do the same if you wish, if you celebrate, if you want. If nothing else, find your favorite song, listen, recollect, remember, smile. And well, it's Ricochet. So we will muddle through, will we not? And at this time next year, I hope we will all be together as well with Peter and Rob, should they show up. Thank you for being a member. Thank you for listening. This has been the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lilacs. Merry Christmas. Ricochet. Join the conversation.