Christmas season 2020 is here, and if it follows the course of the rest of this year, it will be unlike any other Christmas in our lifetimes. Fortunately my kids are up for the challenge, and have been busy inadvertently modifying Christmas songs just to accommodate a Covid Christmas. Please take no offense to any of these, as most of them were overheard during innocent play and hastily written down to enrich posterity.  

“Have a holly jolly Christmas, though you may not know how…” Gather outside and get frostbite? Meet inside with face shields and six foot perimeters between each family member? Stay at home and watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the hundredth time? If you’re feeling the angst of how to celebrate Christmas this year, my 8 year old has modified a song just for you. Big gatherings always make him a bit nervous, so this may be a window into his soul.

“Arrest you merry gentlemen…” Forget having your business license suspended. Judging from his lyric writing, if my six year old were in charge of the local government, there wouldn’t be any sickness spreading. Except in the city jail, maybe.

“Better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why, Santa Claus is comin’… to die.” Ok, so obviously, the kids believed that their modification improved the rhyming of the song. But still, this seems a bit extreme. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures. If 2020 does put an end to everyone’s favorite gift-giving legend, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way to Bethlehem…” This (my kids’ revision A of the song) would definitely pose problems for both pastors and reindeer. Nevertheless, although the weather and geography probably prevented the wise men from sleigh-riding, I appreciate the connection.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way to New York…” Revision B of the song harks back to a time when I used to occasionally travel for work. Sadly, I never was able to travel to New York by sleigh. The “o what fun” no doubt referred to the gifts I brought home for the kids, not to my experiences with connecting flights in the Philadelphia International Airport.

“Joy to the world!” They get this one right. There are sorrows aplenty, thorns infesting the ground, viruses infesting the air… maybe it’s time to look upward to rediscover joy in the “wonders of his love.”

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