I should note that while I maintain a little bit of hipster irony about the whole Christmas thing (for instance, this made me laugh right out loud) there are some other people in my household who are completely into it. And, since I am completely unable to say no to them, I have found myself singing carols and taking part in other wholesome family activities.
On the plus side, I did get to sing a lovely duet with my wife tonight on my favourite Christmas carol (I, of course, was The Saintly King, and she was the Young Earnest Page), which I then got to discuss with my daughter. I note that it won’t be many more years that Sarah will be asking her mother and I to sing, but at four years old she doesn’t seem to mind that my singing strategy is the old Stemple “pitch is for wimps, it’s all about timbre” one. And, of course, explaining to her why it is my favourite, despite my complete areligiousness was fun. In particular seeing how immediately and completely she got the ideas that we should help people out when we can, that this is its own reward, and that people who have more have a responsibility to share more
And, I get to see things like this:
