#349: Christmas Eve

Every year at this time I take a break from posting to spend a little more time relaxing with my family.  Enjoy this final post before Christmas, and I’ll see you all again soon in a couple of days!  Feliz Navidad!

JABBA

RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale
#349: Christmas Eve

So here we are once again, Christmas Eve.  When I was a kid, you were my favourite day of the entire year.   It’s hard not to get excited about you, today in 2014.  Christmas Eve, you were the center of everything, 30 years ago!   Such a short but exciting day.  Inevitably, relatives would start handing us colourfully wrapped boxes, the best ones saved for last.  Then the ritual of steps:  Shake the box.  Give the card a cursory read and give it a toss.  Rip the paper.  Peer inside.  30 years ago, there would have been Star Wars figures inside.  Perhaps my Jabba the Hutt gift set.  An Atari game, possibly.  I wasn’t into music that much until about 1985, when Kiss really opened my eyes.

Around that time, Christmas Eve changed a little bit, but only in a subtle way.  Instead of racing downstairs to play our new Atari games, we would race upstairs to play our new cassette tapes!  Some Helix, Kiss, or Twisted Sister would have been among the music received back then.  We also would have received our fair share of GI Joe and Transformers toys.  I remember the year I got the GI Joe Hovercraft from “Santa”!  Oh boy.  My dad won’t let me forget that one.  I woke up at 1 in the morning to play with it.  Yeah, the parents weren’t overly thrilled to be woken up by the noise at that hour.  I just couldn’t stay asleep!  Having a younger sister meant the whole Santa thing went on longer than its normal sell-by date, but I wasn’t complaining.  It was a lot of fun.

I’m sure tonight won’t be that different.  If I’m lucky, I will receive a CD or two from somebody who loves me.  I won’t race anywhere to go and listen to it right away, but it will be just as appreciated.  After I got older, got a job, and started buying people gifts with my own money, I’ve realized that it’s the giving that is so much more fun.  I cannot wait to see the look on people’s faces, especially when forced to open my elaborately disguised surprises.  That’s what I get a kick out of the most now.

This year, I wish each one of you all the best, and indeed a Merry, Merry Christmas.  Whether you celebrate it or not, have a good day, eh?  Be safe.  Please drink responsibly, and please call a cab if you have been drinking.  But that’s enough serious talk.  I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Christmas videos (still unreleased on CD to this day), and some links to past Christmas posts.  Enjoy!  Ho ho ho!


Winger’s cool traditional / funky version of “Silent Night”!

RECORD STORE TALES:

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24 comments

  6. I remember listening to Twisted Sister back in the day and reading your post made me wonder about Twisted Christmas. Have you heard it? Merry Christmas, Mike! And cheers!

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    1. My brother-in-law gave me that Twisted Christmas CD. Until you mentioned it here, it hadn’t crossed my mind in ages. I don’t even know if it’s still here in the house!

      Later: Hm. Nope. Don’t see it in the regular stacks. What happened to the damned thing? I remember thinking it was pretty funny but a one-off gag (I’m not much of a Christmas music guy).

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      1. I used to listen to Dee Snider et al in grade six. And “We’re not gonna take it” was our theme song before heading out for pub night in university. But other than that, I wasn’t a big fan. The Twisted Christmas piqued my curiousity though. Christmas is always hit and miss and typically is only listened to one month of the year. But Snider does have a set of lungs on him.

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        2. Hilarious. They’re pulling the same schtick in the video. And they worked the “we’re not gonna take it riff” into the song! It’s like grade six all over again.

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  10. Of course i am totally commenting here after the fact because I went a few days at the parental units purposely avoiding the internets so we could spoil the kids, eat, drink, watch junior hockey, drink some more, spoil the kids, eat some more… [repeat cycle]

    Christmas eve used to be magic for me, and then we grew up. But now we have kids and it’s magic all over again.

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    1. I KNOW! Oh my God. So stupid. You can no idea how much that bugged me.

      That toy sucked by the way. Yes the Jabba figure was good but the thing he sits on is stupid. He sits on the trap doors that Luke is supposed to fall through. How does that make any sense. Jabba would have to move over, and say, “Hey Luke, mind standing right there a moment?” and THEN trigger the trap doors.

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