Kittens do not equal Christmas.

It's that time again. "You know, ho ho ho, and mistletoe, and presents to pretty girls," as Lucy would say. I love it all. Someday I will have a Christmas with mulled cider and a gingerbread house placed carefully somewhere that my dog can't eat it, and a tree that's not denuded of all ornaments below greyhound mouth height. This is not that year. I'm doing what I can with a little bit of snowfall, a tree that's beautiful above greyhound mouth height, and the promise of some really good stocking presents on Christmas Day.

I also enjoy Christmas music. Most of us do. It's a guilty pleasure to sing along with the Waitresses' song "Christmas Wrapping" or anything done by Bing Crosby. Throughout the years, tradition has also placed some songs firmly in the holiday genre, though they may have very little to do with Christmas itself. Some examples are "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and, well, others. "Winter Wonderland" perhaps. They get by quite nicely with solid winter references. I'm not sure how the Southern Hemisphere feels about these songs. They're too busy standing around the barbie turning snags.*

There is, however, one song that baffles me to the point of apoplexy every single year. It has nothing to do with Christmas, very little to do with winter (or summer for that matter) and makes no mention of anything that reminds me of Christmas.

That song is "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. What the hell, people. I have asked roughly 736 people why they think this song has any right to be a Christmas song, and most of them either try to tell me that it's a song about what people want for Christmas or else that it's about presents, citing the "packages" lyric.

I spent hundreds of hours in high school and college tearing apart lines of poetry. As a result, I'm uniquely qualified to tell you that this vaguely retarded song has nothing at all to do with Christmas. For your convenience, I have reproduced the lyrics below.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

"Aha!" you say, "but look at the mentions of wintery things!" Yeah, but there's more stuff that's non-winter than there is winter stuff. And the packages thing? Let's look a little closer. "Brown paper packages tied up with strings." Um, no. If I got anything of this nature under the Christmas tree, I'd assume it was filled with poo and refuse to open it.

Since it's past time for me to leave for work, I'll leave it at that. If anyone can give me the remotest reason why this song should be accepted into the pantheon of holiday classics, I'm willing to listen. But I probably still won't believe you.

*This description of Christmas, by the way, is what my dad thinks heaven must be like. I sure hope so.