Christmas Thoughts; Christmas Song Review

As anxious as I usually am, I have to be grateful for things when I encounter them.  This time around I am grateful for the weather.  It's not great, it could be better.  But with the exception of a couple peeks of sun yesterday/Tuesday/Christmas Eve, it has been cloudy, and you know, I do prefer cloudy to sunny days.  More important than that, the temperature lately has hovered around 32 degrees, and it has been above freezing during the day the past several days.

That, and the fact there has not been any snow since that storm we had, means that driving has been perfect and without incident.  My drive to the place I go to late Christmas Eve was completely normal, and you can't say that every winter.  But about the bar: Even though I think I get there around the time I usually get there, I missed the band that usually plays every Christmas Eve night.  Also, they closed at midnight, and I don't know if they did that last year, or the years before that.  It was still OK; I stayed only 75 minutes or so, and I was the last one to leave the bar (never thought I would ever do that), but I think that beats going stir crazy at home.  Still, I usually want to be in that bar when midnight rolls around.  If they close at midnight, that is impossible.  So ...

Oh, by the way, I left close to 5:30.  I missed Hooters, Southdale and Cheesecake Factory.  Oh well.

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OK, Christmas music time.  In my opinion, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is The Most Popular Christmas Song In The United States Every Christmas.  (That it is the youngest song considered to be a Christmas standard is somewhat of a miracle -- a Christmas miracles, so to speak.)  But what is the second-most popular song?  You could make a case for Wham!'s "Last Christmas," which is the United Kingdom's #1 song for Christmas week for the second Christmas in a row (that is important over there, for some reason).  But here in the States, at least when it comes to the Billboard chart, I think it is Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree."

According to the song's Wiki, Johnny Marks, a guy who wrote two other Christmas standards, "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (nice), wrote "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," and she wanted Lee to sing it even though she was 13.  The song, done way back in 1958, was made in rockabilly style, and the style is both perfect for the song and unique when it comes to Christmas standards.  I don't know of another Christmas rockabilly song, right?  And it swings, too!

Every Christmastime, Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" dominates the top of the Billboard Top 100.  But last year, miraculously, Lee managed to break through and reach #1.  She claimed the record for longest gap between #1 singles; she last reached the top spot October 24, 1960 with "I Want To Be Wanted," a little more than 63 years.  "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" set the record for longest time to reach #1 after its original release, about 65 years.  And Lee also became the oldest person to ever have a #1 song, beating 62-year-old Louis Armstrong (his "Hello, Dolly!" went to #1 in May 1964).  She was 78 when it reached the top spot in December 2023 ... and it stayed there for a second week ... and technically, Lee broke her own record because within that week, on December 11, 2023, she turned 79.

There finally was an official video made for "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," released in November 2023.  You know, that might be the reason the song finally got to #1:

Merry Christmas, everybody!