Monday, April 25, 2005

"Oy" To The World

I love Christmas. It's my favorite holiday - hands down - and in my family, we go all out. We hike out to the tree farm to cut our own evergreen, live on a steady diet of hot cocoa and candy canes, view "It's a Wonderful Life" at least 20 times ("Zu-Zu's petals...there they are!"...."Teacher says, 'everytime a bell rings, an angel gets its wings'."), and start playing Christmas Carols the day after Thanksgiving. It's this last point that got me to thinking.

As I was listening to my favorite Yule-tide tunes this past Christmas as sung by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, I was suddenly aware that something was wrong with this picture.....Hmmmm, what could it be? Oh, I know.... Neil and Barbra are JEWISH! Now, I love my Jewish brothers and sisters - have Bab's greatest hits and I've seen Neil in concert ("Sweet Caroline...Ba, Ba, Ba!") - but I must ask, "Why are they singing traditional Christian holiday songs?" I mean, when they are singing, "Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth..." umm, no - according to your traditional Jewish teachings, your Savior hasn't arrived yet - His flight's been delayed. Now I know they have the right to sing whatever song they want. I'm just saying it's as believable as Elton John singing a love song to "Nikita".

Then I got to wondering why this phenomenon doesn't go both ways - I think some traditional Chanukah songs as sung by popular non-Jewish artists deserve some equal air-time on the radio. How about "The Dreidle Song" as sung by the Chairman of the Board - Frank Sinatra? "Dreidle, Dreidle, Dreidle...Doo-Bee, Doo-Bee, Doo!" Or "Hava Nagela" as sung by Elvis Presley?
"Ha, Ha, Ha, Hava Nagela!....Thank you, thank you very much."

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Sit-Down Comedian has left the building

5 comments:

Cindy said...

You crack me up! Thank you so much!

Ottawa Pocket Watches said...

Re: your comment about crapping your pants if Rosie commented on your blog...I had a similar reaction. Check out:

Excuse Me While I Soil Myself

http://someoneouthere.blogspot.com/

lightfeather said...

Once again, you make me laugh! Laughing helps you breathe and we all need to do more of that!

Still working at making that small print for the hand stamp :-)

Playground In My Mind said...

hi..:) I get it. Oconomowoc! I see. My husband and I worked for WZTR (and Star 95) Oldies outlets and then we worked for Metro-Traffic. I was middays on WZTR-Renee Coble-I left in 1995
you are hilarious, by the way!! Renee

Cindy said...

I had a wonderful time, the weather was perfect. I can't wait to read your next post.