It’s here! The day is here! CHRISTMAS. December 25th. Everyone shut up, everyone shut up, the presents aren’t ready! Go to church with your mom! Santa’s not here yet! It’s too goddamn early! Make yourself useful and clean the living room before grandma gets here! The sounds of joy on this, the lord’s birthday.
Despite everything about me, I love Christmas. I love the hopefulness. I love the melancholia. I love the nostalgia. I love the chance to make people in your life smile. I hope these 25 days of Christmas songs didn’t drive you off this Substack altogether. By god, if it did, you’re probably not reading this. Sorry I lost you early.
I promise to get back to the sad stuff soon.
But, to celebrate this final day on the Christmas Song Advent Calendar, I’m not giving you one song. I’m giving you two special packages of music. Ew.
First up, a playlist of Nintendo Christmas-adjacent music! If there’s one thing that defined my childhood Christmases, it was hoping and praying that I’d get something for a (usually) Nintendo system. This music takes me back, just like the plane I was on to Florida took me back. Music and planes. Makes you think.
(If you can’t hear this playlist, click here!)
Second in our joy, here is the complete 1974 in-store Christmas music for Kmart! It’s lovely and strange and almost a little creepy. Something fascinating and odd about listening to the exact music and commercials anxious people were hearing as they bought presents decades before you were born. Wild.
(If you can’t hear the beauty of a department store before it collapsed, click here.)
Thank you for putting up with this silly distraction during tough times. I appreciate you all reading this Substack and I hope you all have a great holiday - or, at the very least - a day off.
Merry Christmas, Mike. Hope you’ve had a good one