I sang a couple of Christmas songs, including this one. It’s a dark look at Christmas (the first line is, ‘It’s the season of sentiment and suicide’), and it’s oh so satisfying to sing.

Enjoy, and have a happy, sad, scared, mad holiday season.

Lyrics:

Christmas Presence

It is the season of sentiment and suicide
A time for treasure and trauma with no place to hide
from the trumped up cheer and the canned caroling
have we forgotten the reason for Christmas
or lost it in packaging and glitter

It is the season of grief, of brief, sweet release
From the hard cold necessities of our hard cold days
We pretend peace on earth, and intend good will to men
For we’ve forgotten the meaning of Christmas
wrapped in layers of paper and tinsel

In a child’s bright eyes is the sparkle we seek;
when our children were children, we thought lies could be true
So we tricked all the truth from the faith of a child
While we prayed for the feeling of Christmas
Hidden in platitudes and jingles

Can a lie turn a faerieland into a fraud
Can a dream told too many times ever come true
Can a little child lead us into that sacred place
where Christmas came from

Christmas is Solstice, the longest night
And Christmas is Hannukah, festival of light
Christmas is Santa Claus and Christmas is Christ
When Christ was a child, no one died in his name
Christmas is calling us to be children again

May we call ourselves child, may our eyes be bright
May we follow our children from blindness to sight
May our hearts be aflame with the love that knows no shame
May we forget to remember what war is
As we open our presence at Christmas
And may Christmas presence be endless

Bah. This is just me, plain and simple.

Today (when I made this post; had problems so it was delayed) is Canadian Thanksgiving, and I’m looking back with gratitude at the so-called bombing of the Moon, President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and Guy Laliberte’s Poetic Social Mission (http://broadcast.onedrop.org/). What a day that was! It changed me, and I think it changed the world.

This is my first video blog, but it won’t be my last. It’s so much easier than typing everything out one letter at a time. On the down side, I’m stuck with the words as they came out of my mouth, painful for nitpicky me. Still, the spontaneity of the thing is part of the charm. I hope.

It’s in two parts, since Youtube won’t accept videos longer than ten minutes, though in total it was under twelve. Picky, picky.

Mom, I guess you’re going to have to get high speed internet or watch at the library. Sorry.

part 1:

>

part 2:

This is my set at the Gong Show (Sungoma, near Duncan) in June …

And this is from March, at “Folk, Yeah!” open mic on Hornby, the first of my vids…

Enjoy, oh, do! And let me know if you saw it, and did you like it, and all that. Thanks, ever’bunny…

I do hope you enjoy it–I certainly did! I would do this sort of thing every single day of my life, happily, if I could get away with it!