I have no idea why I like Christmas music so much. I don't celebrate the holiday (except on the radio). I was thinking the other day that I missed giving folks presents - though I never really got anyone anything they really wanted & I very rarely got anything I wanted. Even when I was specific.
One Christmas, back when my family "drew names," one of my brothers drew my name & asked what I wanted. I knew what I wanted. I wanted a Sisters of Mercy bootleg they had at a local record store in Garland. (It moved at some point - I wonder if it's still there. I can't remember its name!) The bootleg probably cost around twenty bucks, which might have been a little too much for my perennially-low-wage-earning brother, but hey, it was Christmas.
The night of Christmas - I was a poor college student then, you know, & didn't buy anything for anyone - I was looking forward to at least getting to go home that night & listen to a bootleg by a band that I loved whose entire recorded output at that time I was already quite familiar with. A bootleg might mean covers I've never heard! Or different lyrics! More passion! More subtlety!
(There was a great Sisters boot that I loved around that time - I wish I could remember its name - damn! it's too bad we don't live in a time when there might be some kind of computer resource listing all known Sisters Of Mercy bootlegs. Oh well.)
There was an album-sized package with my name on it that Christmas, but when I opened it, it was the album The Gift by the Andrew Eldritch side project "The Sisterhood."
My brother, you see, had "talked to" the fellow behind the counter at the store, who assured him that that record (which cost less ten dollars less than the bootleg, since it was just an EP, which might have been my brother's motivation) was a rarity. My brother did seem proud he had discovered it. But of course, I already owned it. The reason I had asked for the bootleg was, of course, what I said above: I had already heard all that was commercially available by the Sisters. I suppose I am lucky he didn't buy me a Mission UK album.
Was my brother really trying to one-up me, or was he just cheap? I smiled & said thank you. What else could I do? & I gave the duplicate EP to someone. I can't remember who.
That's a big reason why the wife & I don't try to surprise each other with gifts - we know each other well enough to know that we'd ask for anything we wanted if we wanted when we wanted.
I still love Christmas music, however.
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