Skip to main content

Thanksgiving Songs

As mentioned in a previous year, it is not time for Christmas music yet. Rather than to launch into a complaint about this, I will instead give a little longer list of songs that you can listen to right now. You can switch to Christmas songs after your Thanksgiving meal.

  • There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays - It doesn't mention Christmas at all. In fact, it highlights pumpkin pie: a traditional Thanksgiving dessert

  • Jingle Bells - This was written as a Thanksgiving song

  • Sleigh Ride - Some students tried to convince me yesterday that any song with a sleigh is a Christmas song since Santa has a sleigh. You know who else has a sleigh? Jadis, the White Witch from Narnia. It means nothing. That's how you travel in the snow.

     
  • I've Got Plenty to be Thankful For - From Holiday Inn, the same show that gave us White Christmas. I can't fully endorse the movie as it has some scenes that were considered appropriate by some people at the time (they were never appropriate).

  • Count Your Blessings - Also by Bing Crosby, from the far superior White Christmas

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Issues with Harry Potter: Part 4 - The Education System

Okay, maybe it's because I'm not British, but the education system in the Wizarding world makes very little sense to me (a teacher). Granted, the American system doesn't make sense to much of the rest of the world. Here in the US, we don't have college entrance exams, so I won't criticize things like OWLs or NEWTs. However, I am going to have to criticize the entire theory of education. Primary Schooling A Hogwarts letter arrives on a student's 11th birthday (sort of). What are the options for students before they are 11? Rowling says that they may either go to public schools or they are home schooled. It sure seems like most magical parents choose the latter option (most wizards know nothing of the Muggle world, which should not be the case if they attended public school for 6 years). Here we run into our first problem. What exactly are these children being taught? In the US (and from what I can tell, the UK), parents are not required to fol...

Don't Take Candy from Babies

 It's been 8 years since my last Halloween post , so I guess it's time to update my complaint. To sum up: trick-or-treating is for children. If you're not a child, buy your own candy. To be clear, I'm not anti-fun and I'm not anti costume. Case in point: What I am against is co-opting something that is meant for children and taking it for adults/teens (Disney adults is a gray area. It's okay to like Disney, but taking up all the space in the lines at the parks is rude). For the record, I am also against: Adults sitting in costumed Santa laps Adult Easter egg hunts Adults playing on playgrounds during the day while children wait for their turn on the swings with tears in their eyes (most of these scenarios involve crying children in my imagination). I think Halloween is a great time for celebration. It's the nature of the celebrations that change. For my 40th birthday, did I rent a bounce house? No, I rented a movie theater and we watched Stardust. Is Christm...

Gentlemen and Ladies

So, I was listening to the announcements at the end of the school day yesterday. It mentioned something about the Lady Eagles volleyball team playing the Panthers (or some such team). Why does it need to be the "Lady Eagles"? The volleyball team is exclusively women. We don't say the "Gentleman Eagles" football team. We say Savio baseball, not Savio Boy's baseball. A gentleman eagle I can see some cases where a distinction might need to be drawn between teams (soccer, swimming, track, etc). However, we should then use both modifiers (Gentlemen and Ladies). I know that the problem is bigger than just Savio. It often bothered me while I was at UT as well. Many of my students accuse me of overthinking things like this. I think that as a society, we don't consider them enough. What is the micro-message of this disparity? That male sports are "normal"? That you need to be warned that you're going to see women play sports? This is symptom...