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You better watch out...

"The first Noel, the angels did say...
opinion_maxedout1

"The first Noel, the angels did say..."

A long time ago, when the world, at least my world, was simpler, when everything was sustainable because we had so much less to sustain, when our friends were actually friends and we knew who they were because we played with them as often as we could, I loved Christmas.

Christmas meant a holiday from school and that meant a real holiday. It meant my grandparents were coming to visit and that meant Granny was going to spoil us rotten with her baking and Gramp was going to give me more life lessons in what I didn't want to be when I grew up. It was the one time of the year I could be openly greedy, pouring over the pages in the toy sections of the big, national department store catalogs and badgering my parents for something that caught my quicksilver attention. It meant I had a better than average chance of getting it too.

The days leading up to Christmas break were high energy, giddy days and for the most part, teachers were smart enough to channel that energy into less prosaic tasks than mastering long division. Science gave way to art, manifested in decorating the classrooms, creating Christmas cards and acting out the story of the first Christmas. Carols were practiced in class because there was to be a school-wide, parents-invited caroling to climax the final day.

I enjoyed Christmas carols. But much of the imagery in them disturbed me. They disturb me still.

"...Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay..."

What the heck does that mean? What does it mean to certain someone? Is it a pastoral activity? Can only shepherds be certained? Only poor shepherds? Can shepherds certain each other or are angels necessary? What did the angels say? Can ordinary people certain other people? Is it sexual? Can you do it accidentally? Was it okay to certain other guys or, if I ever figured out what it meant, was it only something I should do to girls? I wasn't sure I wanted to be certained but I was certainly curious about whether I'd enjoy certaining someone else. Particularly Priscilla.

I once asked my teacher what it meant. I didn't want to ask her and admit my ignorance of all things certain. But she asked me, after we'd practiced the song, if I'd forgotten the words.

"No," I responded. "I know the next words are 'In fields where they, lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter's ni-ight that wa-as so deep.' And after that it gets real easy, 'Noel, etcetera, etcetera."

But she wouldn't let it go. "Well, if you know the words, why weren't you singing?"

"Because I was wondering what 'certaining' was. What does it mean to 'certain' someone?" I asked, embarrassed.

That was when I learned a grade four student should never ask a grade four teacher a question she doesn't know the answer to.

I'm pretty certain she'd never given much thought, well, at least not as much thought as I'd given, to the question. It quickly became clear she was uncertain. Familiar though she may have been with both the adjectival and pronoun meanings of the word, she hadn't, until that very minute, bothered to ponder 'certain' as a verb. For all I know, I ruined her life.

So we moved on to Frosty the Snowman.

If there was anything I was certain about, it was that I was terrified of Frosty the Snowman. He scared the bejesus out of me.

I was born in Iowa, USA, the year after Gene Autry recorded Frosty the Snowman. There are three things Iowa has more than its fair share of: corn, snow and Republicans. I ate a lot of corn, built a lot of snowmen and didn't have much to do with Republicans. None of my snowmen ever came to life. But from the time I became aware of the words to Frosty the Snowman, as opposed to the catchy tune, it was something I lived in mortal fear of.

Oh sure, Frosty might have danced around after he magically came to life, but that was just the beginning. He was alive as he could be. He could laugh and play just the same as you and me.

I lived in a neighbourhood full of children, many of whom were older and bigger than me and not a few of whom enjoyed thumpetty thumping me. The last thing I wanted was a big fat kid made out of snow, swinging a broomstick in his hand, running over the hills of snow I could barely wade through, wanting to thump me and then mock me by yelling, "Catch me if you can."

Worse yet, he wasn't even afraid of cops!

And why should he be? What could they do to him? Send him to juvie? He'd just melt and they'd only have a puddle on the floor to try and punish.

I was so relieved when my parents moved us to Arizona. It's a lot easier being a kid who's terrified of snowmen when you live in the desert and they're all made of cotton or flock, whatever that is. Still, singing about Frosty dredged up uncomfortable memories.

My snowman phobia wasn't made any easier by the thought that even adults had issues with snowmen. There were the lines in Winter Wonderland about building a snowman in a meadow — I won't even mention how incongruous that seems — and pretending he was (A) a parson who could marry you and/or (B) a circus clown. What is it with snowmen? That's just wrong.

While I don't want to unnecessarily belabour the point, Santa Claus is Coming to Town always struck me as a threatening little bit of extortion too.

Right from the opening line, "You better watch out!" Jeez, Louise. What kind of threat is that? Don't cry, don't pout, don't be naughty. What's left? Can I at least eat, since you've cut out most of the rest of my waking hours' activities?

Do you have any idea how discomforting it is to be told, as a kid who has a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night, "He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake." So the old perv is watching me, lying in bed, wide awake in the middle of the night, waiting to see if I'm going to be bad or good and then making a list he can check twice later to determine whether I get the object of my Christmas desire. Might as well just shoot me now.

And people wonder why so many of us have issues around Christmas.

Enjoy yours, but keep an eye out for rogue snowmen.