By Laura Citino
Western Herald
Ebeneezer Scrooge should be thankful that there wasn’t social networking in his day.
Old Mr. Bah Humbug would be appalled at the way the holiday season permeates every aspect of our pop culture. “Holiday” is a genre in its own right when it comes to this season of music, movies, and television.
Check your Facebook notifications, spend a minute or two on Google, or read the Western Herald. You are likely to find some sort of red, green, and cinnamon scented holiday flavor everywhere you look.
Many of us revel in it, some of us find it a bit annoying and superficial, and some just appreciate the fact that it gives us a reason to drink lots of properly fortified eggnog and forget the previous semester.
Kalamazoo enjoys its share of the pop culture takeover of the holiday season. For some weeks now, Bronson Park has been taken over by tinsel-festooned trees and candy canes.
For those craving the 24-7 spirit, Kalamazoo boasts STAR 105.7 FM, an all-day-everyday Christmas music station that also streams live on the Web.
As one of the staple sources for music knowledge in Kalamazoo, The Corner Record Shop on West Main knows a thing or two about holiday tunes.
“We usually keep a bin or two for Christmas music,” said April Morris, an employee at the Corner Record Shop and singer with local Kalamazoo shoegazing ensemble Glowfriends. “People definitely come in and ask for it.”
As somebody surrounded by music almost constantly as both a record store employee and a member of a local independent band, Morris finds herself at a happy middle ground when it comes to something as polarizing as big and brassy Christmas music.
“I work with some people who absolutely cannot stand it, but honestly when I’m working by myself I’ll put it on,” Morris said.
Even for those who would rather ram a fork down their ears than listen to yet another version of “Jingle Bell Rock,” it’s not as if they have much choice, jingles bells sell. According to the Soundscan music ratings, holiday-themed and Christmas albums have routinely spent time at the top of the charts.
“My band [Glowfriends] actually gets asked quite often to record a song for a Christmas album,” Morris said. “The labels think it’s a cool idea and people are just curious to hear a certain band’s take on the holidays. That’s really the reason more than anything else.”
On the music spectrum, like in so many creative and thus inevitably fashionable arts, it all comes down to what you like, and how eager you are to defend it.
“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures,” Morris said. “If you love something, you love it.”
Movies are another way in which holiday super-fans feel the spirit of the season. “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” get dusted off for their yearly screenings.
Other more recent movies, like “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Elf,” are quickly joining the yearly Christmas movie-watching tradition.
But is it simply an easy cash cow for an industry losing money every year, or is there a deeper cultural current at work here?
For many, watching certain holiday-themed flicks, or even adhering to the same movie tradition year after year is a matter of pure nostalgia.
“It’s traditional to have that Christmas kind of story,” said Justin Williams, assistant manager at Rave Motion Pictures in downtown Kalamazoo. “It’s important to keep that tradition going, to be able to say ‘this is what I remember watching as a kid.’”
Movies are and always have been a bonding force for many families, and this warm and fuzzy idea gets further intensified during the holidays. For Williams, this fits in perfectly with the mixed-up genre trend of recent films.
“Movies are geared towards becoming family-oriented. You get your comedy, your action, your drama – there’s something for everybody,” Williams said.
Everyone has a favorite, from the traditional to the modern, animated and non. NBC traditionally airs “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown” every December, and in recent years, ABC Family has taken up airing the entire claymation canon of “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer” spinoffs.
Williams believes that holiday movies operate in a special world all of their own. It is a world where Arnold Schwarzenegger talks to a reindeer, Tim Allen is the next Santa Claus, and the entire world can fall apart and be put back together by Dec. 25 just by believing in the spirit of it all.
“Holiday movies are definitely a mixture of both – awesome and cheesy,” Williams said. “You can’t have one without the other.”
Let’s say you throw your radio out of the window and vow never to step foot inside a theater all winter, the holidays will still figure out a way to find you and ram snowflake-sprinkled good times down your throat.
Local boutiques and big-name clothing stores like Old Navy and The Gap are already deeply entrenched in offering holiday-specific clothing, from Santa Claus scarves to just about anything in red, green, silver, or gold.
Even if you don’t shop, chances are you have been invited to at least one “ugly sweater” party this Christmas. Then, even the savviest of fashionistas and untouchably cool kids don the biggest, wooliest, reindeer-iest sweaters Goodwill has to offer.
It doesn’t stop there. The entire city is baking cookies, buying Hannukah gifts, marching in holiday parades, and dreaming of sugarplums — whatever those are. All in all, it seems the obvious choice is simply “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
To some, all this cheesy holiday mania is worse than speaking in LOL-speak and much more terrifying than leg warmers. For others, this is the best thing since post-modernism.
It reminds us that we all share common cultural tropes. Try as we might to be unique and beautiful snowflakes, the lake effect is still blocking all of our driveways. We might as well admit it and get the partying underway.
Now, who wants eggnog?
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