Greatest. Christmas. Song. Evar.

There’s no video of Brenda Lee singing this one on YouTube, and all the mash ups stink. The remakes by people like Kim Wilde are uniformly dreadful. You’ll have to make do with just audio.

But what audio! I think the song and the singer and the time and place and cultural context have emulsified into one of dem dere “cultural artifacts.” All the anima is contained in the original.

I’ve performed the song countless times myself, and it’s not that it’s not amenable to performance by others. It’s easy and fun and lively. It’s just that it will always be just an homage to the original. That’s rare, and in this case, wonderful.

Have a big glass of Tang in your free glass from the gas station with your shredded wheat and cream for breakfast. Read a Life magazine while smoking a Chesterfield and waiting for Rob Petrie to come home. Drink a highball, and listen to Brenda Lee over and over while pretending it’s on the AM radio. You can warm your hands over the tubes.

Merry Christmas everybody!