GK: Our show is in New York, a city where many people do not celebrate Christmas except by going to a movie and ordering Chinese take-out. It's unlike Minnesota in that respect. In fact many people move here from Minnesota in order to get free of Christmas obligations and also to become rich and famous, but to escape Christmas too. So there is a sizable percentage of New Yorkers who will go out of their way to avoid Christmas music. They are the ones who go around with wires in their ears. That is not Christmas music they're listening to, you can tell by the way they're bobbing their heads, that's a different beat. For those people ---- a few anti-Christmas songs.
DIGIS:
O come, all ye shoppers, anxious, feeling guilty,
Come ye, O come ye, to the great shopping mall.
Come and buy stuff for people who don't need itAnd you don't even like them,
And probably vice-versa
But you must buy them something because
What if you don't?
GK: That's one problem with Christmas: the stuff. We already have too much stuff and now we add more to it. Another problem is: other people's children.
HM:
What child is this, who, runs around
On Christmas morning yelling
Who kicks the floor and slams the door
Is greedy and loud and bad smelling
This, this is the neighbor child
Too much sugar has made him wild
I'm sick and tired of Yule
I wish they were all back in school.
GK: Demented children, the flood of stuff, and other people's drunken merriment. When you don't drink and you're in a room, or even worse, one room below a room with people who've had a lot to drink, it takes some of the shine off Christmas.
DIGIS (quietly):
God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
I only wish you'd take your party someplace far away.
It was a lovely silent night before your cabaret.
And God rest you and stifle you, merry gentlemen
And God give us a silent night again.
GK: Alcohol, misbehaving children, too much stuff, and then there are certain Christmas songs that the moment you hear them, you turn around and go in the other direction.
HM & DIGIS:
I sure hate this song, pa rum pum pum pum
I hear it all day long, pa rum pum pum pum
I have a gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
A noose and scaffolding, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
When he plays his drum, pa rum pum pum pum,
Let's break his thumbs.
GK: And those are some of the hazards of Christmas. People come to New York to escape from it but if you grow up with it, it's always there inside you, and around the 23rd or the 24th, you will be struck with guilt and you'll dash out and do what you have to do.
DIGIs, HM (Adeste Fideles):
Hear Christmas music dripping from the ceiling
Look at the sales clerks earning minimum wage
Unhappy children whining and crying
O come, let's do our shopping
Buy some stuff and wrap it
If they do not like it they
Can take it back.