We’ll deal with Xmas personifications a bit later. But that deep-rooted desire to be taken home is systemic from limb to limb throughout the thicket…

Perhaps the songs should say it for them:

Certainly Stevie Wonder makes the case with “One Little Christmas Tree.” This ’67 R+B tear jerker involves a whole tree family and some extra angel granting wishes. Ooooh, aaaah. (Countrified by Jennifer Lind.)

Marty Merchant chortles out a kids’ song country pop weeper, “Lonely Christmas Tree.” Desperate, needy, dying little thing.

Parry Gripp goes imaginatively, juvenilely delusional with “Christmas Tree in the Lot.” Some kid sleeps with one eye on the window watching the tree for sale across the street. Is that tree lonely, just like him? No, it’s dead, but in a cool folk-song way.

J.R. Cash grew up in the Great Depression and his hard living helped inform country music of today. All the morass of tragedy and heartbreak in CW songs from the ’60s on come largely from his trembling hound dog sorrowful baritone. All 90 million albums.

Jamie Cooper warbles and warps previous Cash songs to mash up “Merry Christmas to You (How the Spirit of Johnny Cash Helped Santa).” It’s a barn burner of a mess and i slowed down to watch it all. (Is there some Bob Dylan in there too–or Cash’s take on Dylan?!)

I don’t believe Elvis Aaron Presley needs introduction.

Christmas songs ABOUT Elvis get a corner here:

The Christmas Pranksters belabor “The First No-Elvis” to remind the kids of the King.

Bob Rivers snarks one in with a Binging “There’s a Santa Who Looks a Lot Like Elvis.” That’s where he went!

More contemporaneously are the dedications to Elvis:

Mad Milo twerks the DJ comedy (just like Buchanan & Goodman) sampling rock singles in a mock interview bit “Elvis for Xmas.” I guess this comedy stuff is not as easy as it looks.

Eddie Cochran and the Holly Twins twist and shout “I Want Elvis for Christmas.” (Blog repeat!)

Several other torch singers oopeedoo “I Want to Spend Christmas with Elvis” including Little Lambsie Penn, Debbie Dabney (or is that Marlene Paula? Yeah, Paula’s her stage name!), and the updated Stella Jones and some other unnamed coconspirator.

Michele Cody gets sad and lonely (and creepy) with “Merry Christmas Elvis.” This nine-year-old is terminal and praying to sing with dead Elvis in heaven. (Although she does more talking than singing.) Eeek!

Beer at Christmas has a downside: forgotten presents, uninhibited opinions, vomit in the hanging fern….

Angry songs usually just lean into punk, like Fear’s “Another Christmas Beer.” Few actual accidents of mischance trouble this number, though.

And Bah and the Humbugs’ “Christmas Beer” extols the magical powers of the brewski, but the suburban-dad punk sounds a bit tetchy.

Sunny Sweeney changes the tempo with sloshy honky tonk in her “1 More Christmas Beer.” The stink of life’s limitations and regret swings and sways like a denizen of the tavern two past cut-off.

Banging the guitar with heartfelt country David Hutchins wails (more coffee house than dive bar) “I’ll be Drinking for Christmas.” Mostly just about keeping the glass full. But we all know he’s a beer guy with poor decision-making skills.

Slightly more upbeat country with a far more hopeless message is “Christmas in a Beer Joint” by Red State Update. The boys are just having fun, but can we laugh at their depiction of rural pain? Me first.

Let country do what it does best, reflect on the broken life of the lower class. And wink. Gord Bamford tells the old tale of family tragedy in “Daddy’s Beer.” Follow the stages of grief through this toe tapper.

Wet mish mash of food parts is heart warming, stick-to-your-ribs stew, a survival favorite since before JC, Then why aren’t there more songs about Xmas stew?

Mary Helen Mustian from South Henderson Church swans on about “Christmas Stew” in some church dramatization about some Wild West Christmas. It’s inaudible, but soaring. I detect the ingredients of a hit.

I will not dignify this blog with a possible Mariah Carey parody subbing STEW for YOU. Look it up on youtube if you want. Riders in the Sky were totes pop 20-30 years ago. I listened to their radio programme me own self. Lately they’ve fallen out of the fickle favor of folks and find themselves retro as backup in cartoons and the odd State Fair. But please relive the glory days of the camp cook fighting to feed the wranglers during the holidays with “Sidemeat’s Christmas Stew.” Well done, boys.

Snack time continued–

Popcorn can be one fun edible decoration. Eat one, string one! The ratatat birth, the steamy smell, the crunchy/melty dichotomy of texture; this is truly an American treat. (I tried to score some while abroad in Denmark one time. It was in an ‘exotics’ corner of the food mart.)

T.Sex hollers his folk/blues about his broken-hearted Christmas misery in “Popcorn Tin.” BLUE ALERT He’s using popcorn as a weapon here. I wish him the buttery best.

Van Buchanan cures depression with his kiddie contata “Yummy Christmas Popcorn Around the Christmas Tree.” inspired by the Dorp the Scottish Dragon books. That’s right.

Robin Zaruba sweetens the pop with “Tootsie Pops and Popcorn.” Hey, Christ is popcorn! Pop gospel here will teach you why. Wait, does that mean God endorses Tootsie Roll candies™?

Merle Haggard brings that heartwarming homestead pickin’ and grinnin’ to his list of holiday homilies “Santa Claus and Popcorn.” Popcorn is mixed in there somewhere.