Merry Christmas Advent…ure (December 5)

All I want for Christmas is a rock ‘n’ roll ‘lectric guitar

Chuck Berry

Borrowing a line from Marty McFly: “Trust me. Your kids are going to love it”!

Run Rudolph Run by Chuck Berry

Song nine on this list is from an artist who molded Christmas to his likeness. No time for Silent Nights, and no patience for Reindeer games. Santa might have brought Chuck an electric guitair but Chuck brought ‘ol Saint Nick Rock-n-Roll!

While Christmas has it’s staples, Red-suited, jelly-belly Santa. stars on top of trees, egg-flavored-nog, if you zoom in to smaller scales each local, each home, each family, each person has their own Chrismas flavor. Palm trees hold ornaments too you know! This song is the casserole only your family cooks, the neighborhood luminaire that only your (or my) sub-division has. This song and the next are just their own unique Christmas staples. What we all share about the holiday season is great. What we each do to make this season our own is the proverbial icing on the Christmas cookie cake

Santa Claus is Back in Town by Elvis Presley

Everything I said about Mr. Berry applies to this song as well. This song is as uniquely and squarely “Elvis” as can be. This tune puts the hip-shaking “X” in Xmas.

However, it is really the how and when I first heard this classic I want to share.

Back in the day, I worked for an incredible couple, Brian and Carrie, at a small French restaurant in Columbia Missouri called The Petit Bouchon (AKA “The Little Cork”).

Brian and Carrie were amazing chefs and we all worked with an amazing crew in this little corner space to bring some pretty awesome food to the land of MIZ-ZOU. It was one of the most formative and amazing times in my life. Over the holidays we would add to the restaurant’s 6-disc changer our Christmas catalog, the Elvis Christmas Album being one of them.

Now if you have not heard this tune before, buckle up, because you are in for a treat.

Don’t let the opening background singer vibes fool you. The piano, standing bass, and drums break into full smokey-speak-easy blues and there is no looking back.

At the time, and for all the B-B-B-Blue Christmas Elvis of my youth I had never encountered this raucous, Viva-Las-Christmas carol before.

SPOILER ALERT

When Elvis drops the

Hang up your pretty stockings
And turn off the light
Santa Claus is comin’
Down your chimney tonight

Yikes Elvis, settle down

my jaw was on the floor.

Carrie would say in her best faux Gone-with-the Wind affection “I don’t think he is talking about Chimneys…”?

Brian and I would just just fall out laughing. Might have heard that song 100 times that holiday serving season, and that joke 100 as well. Neither ever got old. This song has never left my Christmas must-play list sense. It never will.

Carrie passed away earlier this year. Way too young, and way too early. So song ten is for her. For her family, for her daughter, and for all the memories we take with us from holiday to holiday, year to year.

I can only hope she is upstairs at a great big heavenly tree, telling my mom this exact same story,

I can also hope Elvis stays away from both of them.

Thank you for reading. See you tomorrow.

Main Cover Photo by Michele Purin on Unsplash