Category: Childrens

Consume-mas Quantities: eat your feelings

Man waiting for Xmas cannot live on sweets alone. Songs about the other food groups have peppered the media for years. So lets follow the bountiful ball through these comestible carols:

Rosie O’Donnell had her fifteen minutes of talkshow host fame before she became a professional ‘pig.’ She even dropped an album of holiday duets with her willing guests. Here she salivates with Gloria Estefan (and admits to pigging out) with “I’m Gonna Eat for Christmas.” Psst–It’s okay to make fun of your own weight to the world in a pop song, it’s (theoretically) humorous!

[ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU PARODY ALERT! Doug the Pug internet sensation leads the lackluster shopping spree to “All I Want for Christmas is Food.”]

More silly parody from Pete LaMaster singing dad jokes to ‘Beginning to Look’ (with ample Star Wars references) a la “Holiday Eating.” He’s polite and discrete, so okay.

Be careful with your holiday diet: what sounds like more Plank Road Publishing bemoans “Don’t Eat a Poinsettia” for Christmas. Holiday romper rooms everywhere sing this one (we would hope WITHOUT a Mexican accent on the chorus).

Not everyone eats American for the holidays. Trinidad riddim mon Jahzy lets it all hang out with “Eat Muh Belly Full” without specifying too much exotic sauce (there’s wafer). Get up now!

Sunny Cowgirls recount an Australian smorgasbord (edible and in-) with their own wacky child-style pop song “Ate Too Much at Christmas.” Don’t spew!

Sweet Christmas! cookies 3

The Fairy Tale Pops is the 21st century version of sweatshop kids’ music. They crank out albums into dollar bins based on fairy tales Disney made movies out of but don’t own the Grimms’ copyrights to.

I don’t mean to malign their talent, verve, or business acumen (although their fan site has “0 fans” as of this writing). I think this flashy, percussive, bubblegum is just as good for children as Mozart in the womb. It has a formative place in human development.

I say all this because they have a complete album devoted to a particular Christmas cookie: The Gingerbread Man’s Christmas.

Featured tunes include the swinging pop “Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Man” set to ‘Silent Night,’ a sassy ersatz-rock “The Chase,” and sweet harmony country style “Sweet and Tasty Pastry.”  Set to ‘Up on the Housetop’ “The Great Christmas Eve Cookie Calamity” sets the whole story up, however, with vertiginous rhythms and electronic orchestrations out of science fiction.

Sweet Christmas! cookies 2

Not that cookies are more kid-friendly than candy canes, but the pedantic Christmas chants for little brains add too much sugar and not enough spice. So here are our nominees for most over-enunciated, staccato syncopated, simply loud songs about cookies for Christmas.

Spelling the word cookies (with a mean Spanish guitar) Allie Jo Thomas  folk-teaches the rug rats with “Christmas Cookies.” Short and sweet.

Kids like recipes and following rules, so mix that up with an Island beat as Maple Leaf Learning suggests “Let’s Make Cookies for Santa Claus.” Okay.

Slinging an agenda to the ankle-biters Cherry, the Resurrection Rabbit (unironically) sings “Christmas Cookies” in an undecipherable falsetto about cookies, Christ, and Easter. Huh?

More funny speech impediments from Patrick Roberage Productions, Inc. swinging the kids with the whiny complaints of crappy cookie making in “Christmas Cookie Jam.” Slap that grandma.

Playing the Goofy card Brent Holmes sings “The Christmoose Cookie Song” like a moose, though not a religious one. Moose are stupid and make kids laugh at them, in case you weren’t sure.

Silly hillbilly music makes kids kid like, i guess. Crime and dogs, banjos and harmonicas, John R Erickson romps and rollocks through “Christmas Cookies.” And if you learn about the history of American music in the mix, well fine.

Nothing like a military march to rouse the tots into cookie singing formations! This one seems like Plank Road Publishing (a hothouse of school assembly song production), but i  don’t have a source. “Christmas Cookies” here features a fast and a slow side with a point counter point round for the finale. All i really hear are exhausted first grade teachers.

Perhaps a psychedelic sidebar? Todd McHatton uses cookies as a potent symbol for childish mythology. Yeah, that’s about right.

What kid songs can do is cough up a big production show tune like the renaissance of Disney musicals did back in the ’90s. Veggie Tales wants kids proselytized to Christianity with singing produce and a dash of wit, a dollop of talent, and I must say some delirium. “Oh Santa” features an anxious boy cucumber with a plate of Christmas cookies, three wisemen (asparagus burglar, pea viking with an odd trace of Hebrew, squash IRS auditor), cheap sets, samaritan examples, slapstick, and a bellicose tomato Santa. Take a peek:

Sweet Christmas! pudding, doughnuts, pie

Other confectionary carols?

Well, let’s skip ‘We Wish You’ with its oddity of asking for figgy pudding… although, Plank Road Publishing has some classy antique school-kids’s song entitled “What is Figgy Pudding?” which is as good an excuse for a song as any around the non-ecumenical holiday singing assembly.

Dunkin’ Donuts has a holiday album celebrating fried dough from 2004. It’s fresh from the Phillipines, if that matters. Please to praise “Merry Munchkins” ’cause it’s about love. Sam Concepcion, Cheska Ortega and Audie Gemora sing bilingually.

Everybody loves a great pie. Christmas time, pies tend to be mincemeat. We’ll explain why tomorrow. For now, let’s look at generic tarte. A few singers sell the basic pastry, like Mongstar with “Christmas Pie (Christmas Cock Riddim).”  I think there’s chicken in this pie, but it’s got an island beat you can eat to.

Some singers like Music Box improv tell us that “What’s in the Pie? (An Improvised Christmas Song)” is not meat, minced or otherwise. Lively, but in an unbalanced way.

Kirby Heybourne claims his “Wassail & Apple Pie” is other than the traditional as well, but his driving guitar and cracking vocals promise a standard-setting song.

Larke makes “Xmas Pie” about corporations getting their piece of it. It’s not flaky or savory so much as symbolic and censorious.

Coming in somewhere between Barenaked Ladies and Brain Setzer is Fayetteville Ska Alliance with the remarkably fun “Have Another Piece of Pie.” Party pie please!

I’d rather go Victorian for your victrola. “Dame Get Up and Bake Your Pies” comes from the traditions and doggerel of Mother Goose and whatnot. While it’s become popular to delve into the dank origins of why the maids lay and the ducks lost their wings (political scandal and bad health i’m sure), let’s simply listen to The Revels Children’s Chorus lull us into holiday horrors with this rendition:

Sweet Christmas! peppermint

Candy covers Christmas treats overall. But peppermint gets special attention about now.

Owl City graduates out of Disney pop and approaches alt light with “Peppermint Winter.” It’s fun, then emo, then pop, then rock. Multi-flavored! [But this Adam Young guy has the worst management; this song is included in dozens of cheapie compilations with no credit to the Minnesota electronic wizard.]

Full alt hails from These Are Waves with “Peppermint (The Christmas Song).” It strums through millennial feelings, which can get so complicated this time of year.

College band Ormsby comes to us care of Youtube with “Arsenic & Peppermint.” It’s a good ol’ college try, heavy on the tambourine.

Too many songs piggyback onto the topic with place names that include peppermint. But have to give a moment to Bobby Vinton’s “Peppermint Stick Parade.” It’s jolly and… well musically it’s not much. But it’s jolly.

Also tangential, The Lennon Sisters take a Lawrence Welk break to tell us the tale of “Peppy the Peppermint Bear.” I woulda thought Santa’d’ve more standards than to let an ursine mix the sweets.

The American Song-Poem album really takes it away with the peppermint song possibilities, re: “Christmas Treat, Peppermint” by The Sisterhood.

Outstanding in its own field, Randall Reed with the Forerunners run from reason with “The Peppermint Stick Man.” If ever a Stephen King suggestion flew out of a Christmas song, this would be it. Don’t take my word for it, allow Avoicecrying33 to set up this masterpiece in his own ineffable way (& he takes a minute to get going).

Sweet Christmas! candy 3

Yeah, there are gonna be some condescending tunes here; adults really like lisping and stuttering and speaking with ersatz brain damage to mimic kids–it’s so fun!

Perhaps Fern’s warble is old age creeping in. But her “Christmas Candy” whispers tremulously with school marm sternness that suggests it’s okay, just this once, to binge on sugar.

Phil Coley is the traditional kids’ singer with his slow, monotonous, sing-song doggerel. Hey, it’s catchy. And there’s hairdo mayhem.

Sweet Christmas! candy 2

1960s children’s jazz for Christmas! Huzzah!

Five Christmas compilations from Peter Pan records proclaimed to be Snoopy’s Christmas album from 1968 to 1972. No artists are accredited, but they usually got labelled Peppermint Kandy Kids or some such moniker. From 1970 and 1972, here is “Christmas Candy.” Stay tuned for the music to switch from good for you light operetta to swingin’ bossa nova. Grue-veigh.

1950 children’s music for Christmas! More loud cheers!

Jimmy Wakely is one of the last singing cowboys. Margaret Whiting hit big in the ’40s with ‘That Old Black Magic,’ and ‘Moonlight in Vermont.’ She was slightly more famous, her dad wrote ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop.’ But together they hit big in ’49 with the country tune ‘Slippin’ Around.’ Here is “Christmas Candy” by them together–so full of molasses that toys don’t even matter!

Sweet Christmas! potpourri

Christmas may celebrate our ability to suffer through a long frosty time of no crops. To keep starvation rationing of moldering supplies from becoming monotonous, a festive binge half-way through lightens the longing. 12/25 ought to do it.

Now, chowing down and hossanahing Christ may seem dissimilar means to an end, but after weeks of deprivation a sudden mouthful of monosaccharides might move you to ejaculate an ecclesiastical exhortation or (OMG!) two.

So let’s explore the candy-coated side of the holidays this month. Lots of songs sample the suckers, chockies, pies, and cakes (yes, even minced and fruit). (We’ll get to actual Xmas victuals next month). So, insulate me with insulin, i’m going in!

Most of us feel regretful after gleeful gluttony, however, so Bah and the Humbugs start with candy and cookies and  pie “What I Ate for My Christmas Vacation.” It doesn’t get better, but it does get sweeter.

Jesus Christ! presence

Well, it’s the time for giving, and if you’re fresh out of myrrh–then what?

Well, God gave us his own life… wait that’s not right. He became human so he could feel and die and… wait.

4Him boy bands the message with “Jesus. The Best Gift of All.” Meaningful, if a bit stuck in the ’80s.

The Christmas Kids get behind the notion better with “I Have a Present for Jesus.” (Hint: he’ll need a refrigerator to magnet it to.)

Jesus Christ! name-dropping

So, where’d the parents come up with that name? Did they have a grand-uncle with that name? Did they make a list? Were they told?

Maynard’s Groovy Bible Tunes extrapolates out of scripture how Josephus came down to it. David  Heath-Whyte sillies up the process in a children’s cheerleading chant: “Jospeh Call Him Jesus.” no need to take notes, you’ll have the spelling rote by the end of the song.