I got the most stuff! I won Xmas!

Every year about this time I get an email from my dad asking me what I want for Christmas. Because a large part of me is and will perpetually be eight and a half years old, I usually ask for toys. Two years ago, for example, I asked for Mario Kart Wii. My dad asked something to the effect of "What the hell is that?" I told him to simply go into Best Buy, find a dude with a blue shirt and a pair of khaki pants on, hold out your arms and pretend like your driving a steering wheel, and say "My 28 year old son wants Mario Kart Wii." Really, I just wanted the mental image of my dad doing that in a store more than anything else. By the way, Mario Kart Wii has NOT disappointed. My dad has yet to tell me whether he acted like he was driving when he asked the dude at Best Buy for help. I like to think he did.

Being a bit of a bah humbugger, I haven't cared much for Christmas for the past several years. I like getting out of town for a bit. I like cookies. I like seeing, well, some of the family. I like going downtown to The Torch and getting my annual TorchBurger and pints of Guinness for $2.75 (or whatever it is they cost now). I don't like 97.46% of Christmas music. The only two Christmas tunes that I will voluntarily listen to are "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues (or whoever happens to be covering it) and "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carrey. Shut your damn mouth. Don't act like you don't like that song, too. I don't like the security at the airport. I don't like the great bloody wind tunnel that is the arrivals gate of Detroit Metro Airport -- it's like they said "Hell, let's figure out a way to make it even colder." If I were interested enough, I would have made the word "colder" appear in blue letters but I'm pretty lazy at the moment and this football trivia set that I have been procrastinating on all week isn't going to write itself.

This is, however, the season of wishes and with that in mind and my dad's email hitting my inbox this afternoon, I sent him my Christmas wishlist this evening. It went something exactly like this:

Dad,

Here's my Christmas wish list:

-- A gift certificate to zappos.com -- I'd like to buy a nice pair of running shoes. Link: http://www.zappos.com/gift-certificate

-- A gift certificate to black 13 tattoo parlor here in Nashville -- Let's face it, i'm going to get tattooed anyway. Link: http://black13tattoo.zamstores.com/cat/gift-cards-479.htm

-- A bottle of fine scotch. Any reputable liquor store should be able to help you out with this one. I'm partial to anything from the Speyside region of Scotland. :)

-- A jacket that falls somewhere in between the lines of "I wanna be cool" and "I really can't be because I like 'Lord of the Rings' too much." Maybe some sort of sport coat. Black or heather grey, preferably.

-- Eric to do his rendition of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=104cdcySpEs

-- Justin Bieber to fall off a tall building. I know you probably don't know who he is but imagine a modern Canadian version of Donny Osmond and you're in the ballpark. If you can make this happen, I don't think I'd need any of the other wishes on this list.

After that, just kind of let your imagination run wild.

See ya in a few weeks,

Stephen

I will report back to you, dear readers, with the results of my haul. Hopefully, I'll post between now and then because I know how Nick gets into such a tizzy when I don't post often enough.

Now, I bet that some of you probably glossed over that list. If you did, then you missed this gem. It's funny because the aforementioned Eric is my younger, Korean brother.

Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

Fairytale of New York (part 2)

My favorite Christmas song:

"Oh, you don't need to buy me anything for Christmas."

If only my grandma really meant it when she said, "Oh, you don't need to buy me anything for Christmas."

For the first time ever in the history of the life of Stephen P Bohn, I am all but done shopping for Christmas gifts multiple days before Christmas Eve. I would like to thank amazon.com and their 'free 2-day shipping to anywhere in the United States' thing they've got going on. Saved me over $200! As an addendum... Mom, Dad, Jessica and Eric... If any of you happen to be reading this, don't peak inside the multitude of boxes being shipped to the Brighton homestead. Especially the one that reads "Not Steve Martin's All Natural Penis Cream®" in big red letters. Definitely not that one.

She's 80-something years old and likes to cook, reading, Chruch and being passive aggressive. If only I could find somehow find a copy of The Christian's Ultimate Guide to Making Quality Meals for Heathens but every place I look seems to be sold out. It's rivaling Elmo's Tickle Hands in terms of popularity. By the way, that gift is not as erotic as it sounds.

What to do? I'm on the verge of a massive accomplishment for myself: getting Christmas shopping done this early. I'd be so proud of myself. Hey! Maybe that's what Grandma wants! She wants me to be proud of myself! But how the hell can I do that if I can't get a gift for her? Oh, fate, thou art cruel.

I've been asking around the office what I should get my Grandma for Christmas... I keep hearing the same things: Chocolates. Flowers. Tickets to a monster truck rally. None of these suggestions really strike me as quality "grandmother" gifts. They strike me as awesome first date ideas; I know I'm single and all but I don't want to give Grandma the wrong impression. Nary a woman in the world can resist the temptation and raw sexual power of Grave Digger and all that its 1500hp engine implies. And ain't no way am I walkin' down that path with Grandma Bohn.

So, I'm hoping and praying that something falls into my lap in the next few hours or so. Something that will fit into my carry-on luggage or can be shipped directly to a door in Michigan. Maybe I'll just get her a flask, a bottle of whiskey, and tickets to the all-male revue. What? That doesn't sound like a good gift for a grandma?

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

I was talking to Jeff Zuehlke at Ryan Parrish's Christmas / Birthday party last night about how much I don't like Christmas music. I'm a bit of a bah humbugger to begin with so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I don't get (in general) get excited for Christmas much anymore. I'm sure I've written about this before. I am also entirely convinced that there are all of 29 Christmas songs ever written in the history of mankind... and that any time anyone releases one it's got about a dozen or so of those 29 on them. It's very disappointing for the most part. Especially that insufferable "Little Drummer Boy" song which, if I weren't such a gem of a guy, would inspire me to find the last unicorn of yore, slit its throat and watch children, most women, and 43-year old dudes who play World of Warcraft all night long cry many tears.

Again... gem of a guy. But I'd consider it as evidenced that I've told you all about my plan.

Every once in a while, a musical group decides that they are going to think outside of the proverbial holiday box [like what I did there?] and perform a record of mostly original holiday music. This generally turns out to be a bad idea, as well. Need proof? I implore you to click here and prove me wrong. By the way, you can still get this delivered in time for Christmas if you order it now. Thank you, Amazon.

It's a peculiar predicament in which to find oneself: the label has got to be breathing down the artist's neck to make a record that will move 198,000 copies by Christmas and then sell 30,000 each year thereafter and we allare stuck with these Michael Buble sound-a-likes and Amy Grant copycats crooning and non-offending their way into the hearts of post-menopausal women across this great land of ours. I didn't mean for that to sound so misogynistic but there it is. Although, I do hate Amy Grant's voice so I'm not sorry for that part at all.

In the Christmas spirit and in an effort to try to break the mold and overall tone of most of my blog entries, I would like to present you all with a Christmas gift... of Christmas music. That's right.

My friend Aimee and some of her friends recorded a Christmas EP under the moniker Haunting Party. Download it here for free. I'm all about free music and most of my methods for acquiring music for free are completely illegal. Of course, that would mean that I recognize the authority of the RIAA and Lord knows that I don't. Diatribes aside... She and some of her friends recorded this six song EP as a Christmas gift to their friends and family... And, well, to the rest of the world. They're giving it away. It is Christmas after all.

I told Aimee that I'd download it because, well, I am a hell of a guy even though I've made mention time and time again my disdain for Christmas music. Strangely enough, I find my self here sitting on my computer listening to these songs and really enjoying them.

'Tis the season, as it were. Or is. Whatever.

Anyway... Enjoy the tunes. I am.

Fairytale of New York

Thanksgiving is over and with the end of that comes the advent of Christmas. This is the busiest shopping weekend of the year when seemingly everyone wakes up at 3 am on Friday morning and runs around like idiots to buy, buy, BUY things that they think are going to make the people in their life that they love content. As such...

I'm listening to Dustin Kensrue's interpretation of one of the few Christmas songs that I actually like. The song is called "Fairytale of New York" and was originally written and performed by The Pogues on their record If I Should Fall from Grace with God. If you've never familiarized yourself with this song, I'd recommend that you'd hop on over here and watch the video.

It's not like most other Christmas songs you're ever likely to hear.

For some reason, since I first heard this song years ago, it has always resonated with me. I don't really relate physically to the protagonist of the song: he's an alcoholic and is sleeping off night of binge drinking in a New York City drunk tank. I'd like to think the song is an inner monologue of all the things that had gone wrong in his life and the one Christmas where things went right. I humbly ask all of you for your forgiveness for introducing schmaltz into my blog. I further humbly ask all of my Jewish friends for forgiveness for the use of the word "schmaltz". But, as we all know, there ain't no goin' back.

And I think that's what gets me. I know there's no goin' back. No matter how much I'd like, I'm not going to be able to bring my grandfathers back for just one more Christmas. I'm not going to get that feeling back of being 9 again and getting a Game Boy from Santa. I'm not going to be able to have the one woman who said she loved me (and didn't have to do so legally) tell me that she still does. I'm not going to get the feeling of true giving of delivering toys for Toys for Tots for the first time back when I was in high school. All of these things make me wistful for days gone by. Good to get that out of the way at 29.

But, like the honesty and openness of "Fairytale of New York", I'd like to think that there's the most silver of linings in the most gray of clouds. I'm ever the romantic and I think that's what I like most about this song. That at least the protagonist was able to say "At least I did." At least I did... I rather like that. He's at least got the balls to realize that he's spending what may very well be his last Christmas alone and drunk and in what may very well be the worst place one could spend a Christmas Eve... but that he has had the privilege of being loved at least once. And that, as a romantic, is not something to be taken lightly. Naive? Idealistic? Sure... but I've been called worse.

There's an underlying hope in this song that wasn't apparent to me the first several times I heard it. It was something that had to brood (and it did so in spades) for a while before I think I developed an interpretation of the song. It's not just about Christmas - although that is a convenient vehicle for it - it's that things could always be worse. That's backhanded compliment at best.

So our protagonist of this song is clearly on his last Christmas. He's not going to, as the song puts it "see another one". But he's content. And what greater gift... to be content on Christmas. I don't really want or need anything for Christmas this year (I mean, if you've already bought me a backpack for hiking across Europe next fall, by all means, I'll gladly take it). I don't want things. I want experiences.

"So... Happy Christmas... I love you, baby."