Then Rudolph Ate His Liver With A Nice Chianti and Some Fava Beans

Allen November 22nd, 2004

As noted earlier, I saw Andy Williams in his Christmas concert in Branson.  One of the classic Christmas songs Andy sang was It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Written by Eddie Pola and George Wyle, the lyrics include:

There’ll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

Parties for hosting?  Check. 
Marshmallows for toasting?  Have both the marshmallow and the stick.
Caroling out in the snow?  Sign me up.
Scary ghost stories?  ?Que?  Scary ghost stories?

I don’t know.  Maybe, maybe if you stretched it a bit the Abominable Snowman in Bass and Rankin’s Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer could be a bit creepy.  But scary ghost stories?  Nope.

Whoops!  Forgot Dicken’s Christmas Carol.  But once you’ve seen The Muppet Christmas Carol or Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the whole specter of Jacob Marley and the three Christmas spirits don’t seem as scary as before.  No matter how hard you try to play it up, Pegleg Pete just isn’t that frightening as the Spirit of Christmas Future.

Not that the whole Christmas/slasher/death/ghost hasn’t been tried.  It just hasn’t proved to be too successful outside Dickens.  Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, and F.   More to be found, I’m sure.

Maybe successful Christmas Ghost Stories need to be based in literature.  Perhaps I have found the title for my 2005 NaNoWriMo novel: The Silence of the Reindeers.

One Response to “Then Rudolph Ate His Liver With A Nice Chianti and Some Fava Beans”

  1. # unixdudeon 22 Nov 2004 at 2:17 pm

    Oh, oh, I’ve got one!

    Gather ’round kids and hear a spooky story of a scary man who almost duped the whole country into electing him President . . .

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