Almost Something

How bad do you have to be to be passed over by Santa? Do the math.

Merrill Leffmann leads the gang as they kid-culate what they can get away with in “I Hear a Lot About Santa.” Ragtime kidsong for the generations.

“Bad Little Boy” by Ray Stevens counts the sins like he’s sitting in the confessional. Kidsong but it ranges from pet torture to premeditating infanticide. It’s not exactly sung, but he’s not exactly repentant.

Baby It’s Coal: baby it’s you

Specific warnings to individuals about the natural consequences of coal in your stocking to naughtiness don’t come around often. It’s a blanket threat for allayouze to self reflect.

Jesse & the Hogg Brothers rage through the blues about how “Santa’s Got a Bag of Coal.” And they’ll tell you what you did, you ingrate.

Box of Rocks,” by the Song Trust but attributed to kids (of all ages), is a fun kidsong about the letter to Santa tattling about that ketchup-wielding, Barbie-exploding sad excuse for a sibling.

Yee Haw-liday: hoedown

How do the cowboys celebrate Xmas? I don’t give a hoot, nanny!

Ray Schreiner, Tom Width, Aly Wepplo, Lisa Kotula & Joy Williams play around with the Paul Deiss kidsong “Santa’s Holiday Hoedown.” I’m sure they had grand fun making this.

The actual kidsong for your thrid graders to assemble sounds more like “Santa’s Holiday Hoedown.” There’s parts for the teachers, too.

More competition from “Holiday Hoedown.” Farm sounds now. That’s enough.

A brief earnest redo of “A Cowboy Christmas Ball” this time by Steven Spalding of Circle S Ministry. Not a rip-roaring time, exactly. (Or as good as Michael Martin Murphy‘s.)

‘It’s a Sponge Bob Christmas’ presents Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy for some ironic “Ho Ho Hoedown.” High spirits and higher voices.

Xmas Tech Support: Wi-Fi

Unlike local area networking (LAN) the wireless networking technologies of Wi-Fi have been trademarked. So now i have to capitalize that forever….

A couple years ago it seemed hilarious for little kids to parody the ‘Where are You Christmas?’ from ‘The Grinch’ with “Where are You Wi-Fi?” Most of these fame-grabs are pretty horrible. Here’s Aaron rehearsing his skit before the school assembly.

Xmas Tech Support: email

A handy dandy means of communique since the 1970s (for some), the elctronic-mail didn’t quite bury the USPS but it has become the default unfiltered word vomit for our age. Whatever you think–there it is! (It’s replacement is in the works.)

Rosie O’Donnell’s “I’m Gonna Email Santa” actually was a cover (duet) of little Billy Gilman’s hit(?) from 2000, aka “Santa.com.” Gareth Pritchard adds the honky tonk.

More giggly silly children’s drek from some Broadway lyricist sung by 13-year-old Kara Oates (voice of Dora the Explorer), “S.A.N.T.A. Dot Com” is all show tune (piercing, man, piercing).

Even worse is the so-called precociousness of Treypac McKaughan, who at not-quite-three, squalls “I Wrote an Email to Santa Claus.” I hope he asked for ADHD treatment.

Son of Hog gets the snotty kid routine down with “I’ll Just Send an Email to Santa,” a bouncy beerhall twist of sarcasm we can all sing along to.