Good Riddance to Another Bad Year

If calendar year 2024 was a game, it would have been named Dungeons and Dummies: Where frightened people -- on both the left and the right -- were fooled into taking actions that ended up letting Chaotic Evil become Lawful Evil.

If 2025 were a game, it would be called Call of Doody, because it was crap.

And not just because we lost:

* From sports: Bob Uecker, Davey Johnson, Dave Parker, Ryne Sandberg, Fay Vincent, Bobby Jenks, George Foreman, Denis Law, Ricky Hatton, Billy Bonds and Diego Jota.

* From acting: Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer, Claudia Cardinale, Graham Greene, Richard Chamberlain, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Michelle Trachtenberg and Rob Reiner.

* From music: Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Cleo Laine, Connie Francis, Marianne Faithfull, Sly Stone, Ozzy Osbourne, Jimmy Cliff and Roberta Flack.

* From science: James Watson, Jane Goodall and Frank Gehry.

* From writing: Maria Vargos Llosa.

* And also: Pope Francis, Giorgio Armani and JFK granddaughter and budding journalist Tatiana Schlossberg.

Nor was it only a bad year because most of the sports results were bad. Although the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl.

No, 2025 was a bad year because the ugly bloated bigoted spectre of Trump hovered over everything.

Maybe things will get better in 2026, even as he messes with the 250th Anniversary of our independence and the World Cup on home soil.

December 31, 1975: Hockey's "Game of the Century"

Left to right: Peter Mahovlich,

Vladislav Tretiak, Yvan Cournoyer

December 31, 1975, 50 years ago: A hockey game is played at the Montreal Forum. It not only ends up getting labeled "The Game of the Century," but it is often credited with "saving the sport."

Super Series '76 was scheduled, with 2 Soviet club teams taking on NHL teams. One was the reigning Soviet Champions, CSKA Moscow. Translated into English, "CSKA" (pronounced "CHESS-kah") became "Central Sports Club of the Army." It was a team sponsored by the country's Red Army, and that's what they were called in the American media: "The Red Army." The other was Krylya Sovetov, translated as "Soviet Wings." This suggests they were sponsored by the country's Air Force. Not quite: They were sponsored by the country's aircraft builders.

The Super Series began on December 28, 1975, at Madison Square Garden, and the Red Army pounded the New York Rangers, 7-3. This was understandable: Despite celebrating their 50th Season, the Broadway Blueshirts were in total disarray, having recently fired their head coach and general manager, Emile Francis; and traded away several key players, including goaltender Eddie Giacomin, defenseman Brad Park and center Jean Ratelle. On December 29, the Soviet Wings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-4. Also not a surprise: The Pens were not a good team at the time.

The next game got people's attention, though: On New Year's Eve, at the Montreal Forum, the Red Army took on the Montreal Canadiens, a team loaded with future Hall-of-Famers, and one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup.

Les Habitantes got on the board first, as Steve Shutt scored 3:10 into the game. At 7:25, Yvon Lambert made it 2-0. Boris Mikhailov scored for the Soviets, 3:54 into the 2nd period. At 9:39, Canadien Captain Yvan Cournoyer scored, to make it 3-1. So, of the Habs' 1st 3 goals, 2 were scored by men with the French variation on the Russian name "Ivan," meaning "John."

At 16:21, Valery Kharlamov scored, to make it 3-2. At 4:04 into the 3rd period, Boris Aleksandrov scored to tie the game. It ended in a 3-3 tie, and the entire game only saw 8 penalties called. Montreal goalie Ken Dryden saved 10 of 13 shots, while the Soviets' Vladislav Tretiak saved 35 of 38. Each man was reprising a fine performance in the 1972 "Summit Series." It has been called one of the greatest games in the sport's history.

"We outshot them 38 to 13, and that was pretty indicative of the way the game went," the Canadiens' Doug Risebrough said. "Vladislav Tretiak stole the game. He was just great. But the final score didn’t matter. Whether we won, lost or tied the game, we knew we had something special."

On January 4, 1976, an NHL team finally got a win. The Buffalo Sabres, who had advanced to the previous season's Stanley Cup Finals, beat the Wings, 12-6 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. But the Russians re-established their dominance: On January 7, the Wings went into the Chicago Stadium, and beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2.

On January 8, the Red Army went into the Boston Garden and, playing a Boston Bruins team with Bobby Orr injured, Phil Esposito traded to the Rangers for Park and Ratelle, and Park and Ratelle not really settled in yet, dominated the Beantown Brats, 5-2. And on January 10, the Wings went out to Long Island, and beat the rising New York Islanders, 2-1.

There was one game left to play. On January 11, the Red Army went into The Spectrum in Philadelphia, to play the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-time defending Stanley Cup Champions. And the Flyers, in the process of standing up for America, undid a lot of the undoing of the damage.

They had a well-balanced team led by Captain Bobby Clarke and goaltender Bernie Parent. But they were also the most violent team hockey had ever seen, known as "The Broad Street Bullies." Philadelphia fans, enjoying their image as a city for tough people, loved it. 

In the 1st period, Ed Van Impe was sent to the penalty box for hooking. When his penalty ended, with the score still 0-0, he went right at Kharlamov, and elbowed him in the head. The referee, Lloyd Gilmour, did not call a penalty. Red Army coach Konstantin Loktev decided that his players were not going to be treated fairly, and, with the clock reading 11:21 of the 1st period (in other words, 9:39 to go), pulled his team off the ice. Bob Cole, calling the game for CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), yelled, "They're going home! They're going home!"

With the threat of losing their share of the gate receipts, the Russians were talked back into going back onto the ice, and the Flyers beat them, 4-1. Tretiak said the Flyers won by playing "rude hockey." Loktev called them "a bunch of animals." They were both right. But the Flyers had won, and came away believing the Russians were skilled but soft. They were right, too.

The Flyers made it 3 straight trips to the Stanley Cup Finals, and printed up memorabilia reading, "HAT TRICK IN '76." But the Canadiens put a stop to that, sweeping them in 4 straight, for the 1st of 4 straight Stanley Cups. They credited the New Year's Eve tie with the Soviets for sparking them into that dynasty. Dryden, Cournoyer, Shutt, Guy Lafleur, Jacques Lemaire, Bob Gainey, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson would all be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

December 30, 1950: The Dominoes Record "Sixty Minute Man"

Rock and roll is 75 years old? How can that be? Well, it be.

December 30, 1950, 75 years ago: The Dominoes, an all-black vocal group specializing in rhythm & blues songs, record "Sixty Minute Man" on Federal Records, at National Studios, at 460 West 42nd Street in New York City.

At the time, The Dominoes consisted of singer, pianist, manager and songwriter Billy Ward; tenor Clyde McPhatter; baritones Charlie White and Joe Lamont; and bass singer Bill Brown. Ward had teamed up with white songwriter Rose Marks to write "Sixty Minute Man," in which a man brags about how he's a great lover:

Look-a-here, girls, I'm telling you now:
They call me Lovin' Dan.
I rock 'em, roll 'em, all night long.
I'm a sixty-minute man.

If you don't believe I'm all I say
come up and take my hand.
When I let you go, you'll cry, "Oh, yes:

He's a sixty-minute man!"

There'll be fifteen minutes of kissin'.
Then you'll holler, "Please, don't stop!"
There'll be fifteen minutes of teasin'
and fifteen minutes of pleasin'
and fifteen minutes of blowin' my top!

If your man ain't treatin' you right
come up and see ol' Dan.
I rock 'em, roll 'em, all night long.
I'm a sixty-minute man.

The record was released in May 1951, and within a month, it reached Number 1 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, holding that top spot for 14 weeks, a record at the time. It actually crossed over onto Billboard's Popular Music chart -- in other words, white people's music -- reaching Number 17. Black singers had done better than that, but they were pop singers like Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine, not R&B groups or soloists.

If you're asking, "How did a line like 'Fifteen minutes of blowin' my top' get past the censors in 1951?" I don't have an answer. 

Unusual for single records, then as now, the bass singer takes the lead, Bill Brown. There is guitar playing from René Hall, and the drumming is on the 2nd and 4th beats. By a certain definition -- and not just because the words "rock" and "roll" are used together -- this is the very first rock and roll record. 

Another candidate, "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats -- actually Ike Turner and the band he was using at the time -- was recorded in March 1951 (after "Sixty Minute Man"), released in April (before "Sixty Minute Man"), but didn't debut on the charts until June (after "Sixty Minute Man"). It also has the drumming on the 1st and 3rd beats, which tends to disqualify it from the strict definition of "rock and roll." But then, rock and roll has always been about challenging boundaries, and thus strict definitions don't always apply. So either one of these songs could be claimed as the first.

With his own name on the group, Ward took in most of the group's income, despite the fact that McPhatter was the lead singer on most songs. Ward even had Clyde billed as "Clyde Ward," to make it seem like Clyde was his brother. In 1953, Clyde decided he'd had enough, and left to form a new group, The Drifters, arguably inventing "doo-wop."

In 1955, after 2 years of great success on the R&B charts, Clyde was drafted into the U.S. Army. After serving a year, he started a solo career, while The Drifters built an entirely new lineup led by Ben E. King. After years of hard drinking and drug use, Clyde McPhatter died in 1972, not quite 40 years old.

But back in 1953, Ward was ready for Clyde's departure, as he already had a replacement lined up: Jackie Wilson. Eventually, he got sick of Ward, too, and launched a solo career in 1957. He became known as "Mr. Excitement," and had a bunch of hits.

In 1975, performing for a Dick Clark-sponsored oldies show at the Latin Casino in Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Jackie suffered a heart attack -- just as he was singing the opening line of his 1st big solo hit, from 1959, "Lonely Teardrops": "My heart is cryin', cryin'... "

Since throwing his body all over the stage was a part of his act, it took about 30 seconds for people to realize that this collapse wasn't, and it cost his brain precious oxygen. It also didn't help that he was already sweating like crazy, as that was part of his act, too, so that didn't seem like a sign that anything was wrong. He was told that women liked that, and that taking salt tablets would make him sweat more. Those tablets are probably the reason he had a heart attack at the age of 41. He spent the rest of his life in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, dying in 1984.

Bill Brown was even unluckier than McPhatter and Wilson: He got sick of Ward's military-style discipline, left in 1952, joined The Clovers in 1953, and didn't even live to see their success, as he died in 1956. (I've looked for a cause, but I can't find one: Not an illness, not drugs, not an accident, not a murder.) He didn't live to see how his lead vocal would affect rock and roll, inspiring such basses as Fred Johnson of The Marcels (who hit Number 1 in 1961 with a doo-wop version of "Blue Moon") and Melvin Franklin of The Temptations.

René Hall died in 1988, Joe Lamont in 1998, Billy Ward in 2002, and Charlie White was the last survivor, living until 2005. I can find no record of when Rose Marks died, but a photograph of her suggests that she was already middle-aged in 1950, so she has likely been dead for a long time.

Fats Domino, one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, did not name himself for the group: His real name was Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. However, later singer Ernest Evans did take the name "Chubby Checker" as a play on the name "Fats Domino." Still later, in 1970, Van Morrison released the song "Domino," and Eric Clapton formed a group named Derek & The Dominos (no E on the end). Both were tributes to Fats, not Billy Ward's group. (Morrison recorded another song with a tenuous connection to the Dominoes, "Jackie Wilson Said.")

The debate over "the first rock and roll record" continues, but I'm satisfied that it's "Sixty Minute Man" by The Dominoes. 

Presidential Colleges

Harvard University

As they used to say on Match Game, "Dumb Donald is so dumb!" How did Donald Trump get into Fordham, let alone Penn? Same way George W. Bush got into Yale, then Harvard Business School: His father's money.

A method that was not available for either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. At least Joe Biden had his father still alive, well into his political career, but he couldn't afford to send him to a fancy college: He had to earn a scholarship.

Ivy League Schools

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, outside Boston: John Adams, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.); John Quincy Adams, B.A. and M.A.; Rutherford B. Hayes, Bachelor of Laws; Theodore Roosevelt, B.A.; Franklin D. Roosevelt, B.A.; John F. Kennedy, B.A.; George W. Bush, Master of Business Administration (MBA); Barack Obama, Juris Doctor (J.D.).

Adlai Stevenson, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, attended Harvard Law School, but did not graduate. Michael Dukakis, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1988, graduated from Harvard Law, having gotten his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. Al Gore, Bill Clinton's Vice President and the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 2000, got his B.A. degree from Harvard. Mitt Romney, unsuccessful Republican nominee in 2012, got his MBA and his J.D. from Harvard.

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, about halfway between New York and Philadelphia: James Madison, B.A.; Woodrow Wilson, B.A., later serving as a professor there, and as its President; John F. Kennedy, transferring to Harvard. Adlai Stevenson got his undergraduate degree from Princeton.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: William Henry Harrison, attended but no degree; Donald Trump, Bachelor of Science (B.S.), where one of his professors, William T. Kelley, said, "Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had."

Columbia University, Manhattan, New York: Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom studied law there after graduating from Harvard, but neither got a degree; Barack Obama, B.A. Thomas E. Dewey, unsuccessful Republican nominee in 1944 and 1948, got his law degree from Columbia.

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut: William Howard Taft, B.A.; Gerald Ford, Bachelor of Laws; George H.W. Bush, B.A.; Bill Clinton, J.D.; George W. Bush, B.A. John Kerry, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 2004, got a B.A. from Yale, before getting a law degree from Boston College. Clinton met his wife, then Hillary Rodham, at Yale Law, from which she also graduated, having previously earned a B.A. from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, outside Boston. JD Vance, Donald Trump's 2nd Vice President, also has a law degree from Yale, and a B.A. from Ohio State University.

Service Academies

United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, outside New York City: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower, each earning a B.S.

United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland: Jimmy Carter, B.S. John McCain, unsuccessful 2008 Republican nominee, was also a graduate.

Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) Schools

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: James K. Polk, B.A.

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, outside Cincinnati: Benjamin Harrison, B.A.

University of Cincinnati: William Howard Taft, Bachelor of Laws.

Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, outside San Francisco: Herbert Hoover, Bachelor of Science; John F. Kennedy, briefly attending graduate school there. Mitt Romney attended Stanford before getting a B.A. from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina: Richard Nixon, Bachelor of Laws.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, outside Detroit: Gerald Ford, B.A. Thomas Dewey got his undergraduate degree from Michigan.

Georgia Institute of Technology (a.k.a. Georgia Tech), Atlanta: Jimmy Carter, transferred.

Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York: Joe Biden, J.D.

John Nance Garner, FDR's 1st Vice President and a former Speaker of the House, attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but did not graduate. Al Gore also attended Vanderbilt, before transferring to Harvard. Henry A. Wallace, FDR's 2nd Vice President, graduated from Iowa State University in Ames. FDR's 3rd Vice President was Harry Truman.

Barry Goldwater, unsuccessful 1964 Republican nominee, attended the University of Arizona, but did not graduate. He remains the most recent nominee of either major party without a college degree.

Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's Vice President and the unsuccessful 1968 Democratic nominee, graduated from the University of Minnesota. So did Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's Vice President and the unsuccessful 1984 Democratic nominee, after previously attending Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's Vice President, got his law degree from Indiana University, after getting his undergraduate degree from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Mike Pence, Donald Trump's 1st Vice President, also got a law degree from IU, after earning a B.A. from Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana.

Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's Vice President, got a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Wyoming, having previously attended Yale and the University of Wisconsin. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's Vice President and the unsuccessful 2024 Democratic nominee, graduated from the University of California's Law School, in San Francisco, across the Bay from the main campus in Berkeley, after earning her B.A. from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Others

College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, outside Norfolk: Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, both studied there, but neither ever received a degree; John Tyler, B.A.

Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden Sydney, Virginia: William Henry Harrison, attended but no degree.

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine: Franklin Pierce, B.A.

Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, outside Harrisburg: James Buchanan.

Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, outside Columbus: Rutherford B. Hayes, B.A.

Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio, outside Cleveland: James Garfield, attended but did not graduate, as they were unable to grant degrees at the time.

Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts: James Garfield, B.A.

Union College, Schenectady, New York, outside Albany: Chester Arthur, B.A.; Jimmy Carter, took a single course in nuclear physics there.

Ohio Military Institute, Cincinnati, now defunct: Benjamin Harrison, who did not graduate.

Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, outside Erie: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

University of Mount Union, Alliance, Ohio, outside Cleveland: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

Albany Law School, Albany, New York: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, outside Charlotte: Woodrow Wilson, before transferring to Princeton.

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., the 1st person to earn one who became President. Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's 1st Vice President, attended Hopkins briefly, and later got a law degree from the University of Baltimore.

Ohio Central College, Iberia, Ohio, outside Columbus: Warren G. Harding, B.S.

Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts: Calvin Coolidge, B.A.

University of Missouri at Kansas City: Harry Truman, briefly attended its School of Law, remains the last President who did not graduate from college.

Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson, B.S.

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.: Lyndon B. Johnson, attended its law school but did not graduate; Bill Clinton, B.S.

Whittier College, Whittier, California, outside Los Angeles: Richard Nixon, B.A.

Georgia Southwestern State University, Americus, Georgia: Jimmy Carter, transferred.

Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois: Ronald Reagan, B.A.

Oxford University, Oxford, England: Bill Clinton, so far the only Rhodes Scholar to become President.

Occidental College, Los Angeles: Barack Obama, transferred.

Fordham University, Bronx, New York: Donald Trump, transferred.

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware: Joe Biden, B.A.

Alben Barkley, Harry Truman's Vice President, graduated from Marvin College in Clinton, Kentucky; and then from Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, now Emory University in Atlanta. George McGovern, unsuccessful 1972 Democratic nominee, graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University in his hometown of Mitchell, South Dakota.

Bob Dole, unsuccessful 1996 Republican nominee, got a B.A. and a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

No college at all

George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland.

December 28, 1975: The Cowboys' Hail Mary, Full of Disgrace

December 28, 1975, 50 years ago: The Minnesota Vikings host the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC Divisional Playoff game at Metropolitan Stadium, in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Each team had dominated, and would continue to dominate, its respective Division through the 1970s: The Vikings, the NFC Central; the Cowboys, the NFC East. The Cowboys had lost Super Bowl V and won Super Bowl VI; the Vikings had lost Super Bowls IV, VIII and IX, and were going for their 3rd straight NFC Championship.

The game's 1st half was relatively quiet, with only one score, a touchdown by the Vikings in the 2nd quarter that made it 7-0. The Cowboys tied it with a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. So the game was dominated by each team's defensive unit, the Cowboys' "Doomsday Defense" and the Vikings' "Purple People Eaters."

Early in the 4th quarter, Toni Fritsch, the Cowboys' Austrian-born placekicker, kicked a 24-yard field goal, and they led 10-7. But quarterback Fran Tarkenton, named the NFL's Most Valuable Player that season, led a touchdown drive that gave Minnesota a 14-10 lead with 5:24 left in regulation.

The Cowboys could not gain a 1st down on their next drive, so the Vikings got the ball with 3:12 left. With Tarkenton as a running quarterback, known as "Fran the Scrambler" -- as was the Cowboys' Roger Staubach, a.k.a. "Roger the Dodger" -- the Vikings kept the ball on the ground to run out the clock, forcing the Cowboys to use up all their timeouts.

But on a 3rd & 2 play, Charlie Waters sacked Tarkenton for a 3-yard loss, with the clock stopping for the 2-minute warning. Tarkenton later said, "That play cost us the game. It wasn't the Hail Mary pass. We had the game in control, but didn't make the play."

The Vikings punted, and the Cowboys got the ball back on their 15-yard line, with 1:51 left, and no timeouts, including the already-used 2-minute warning. Staubach got to the Cowboys' 31, then took a low snap and fumbled it, resulting in a 4th & 16 from the 23. He threw a pass to Drew Pearson, who was pushed out of bounds by Nate Wright before he caught it. Under the rule of the time, this counted as a reception. The rule was changed in 2008. The rule might not have been fair, but it was in place.

Staubach got the Cowboys to the 50-yard line with 32 seconds left. Staubach threw a long pass, usually called a "bomb" in those days. Being Catholic, he called it a "Hail Mary," putting that expression into the football lexicon.

The pass was intended for Pearson, who was again covered by Wright. Pearson pushed Wright, which should have resulted in a penalty for offensive pass interference. No penalty was called, and Pearson caught the pass, and took it in for a touchdown. The Cowboys led, 17-14.

To make matters worse for Tarkenton, he found out that his father -- named, with retroactive irony, the Reverend Dallas Tarkenton -- died while watching the game on television, back in their hometown of Athens, Georgia.

The Cowboys went on to beat the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC Championship, before losing Super Bowl X to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Vikings rebounded to win the NFC Championship the next year, but lost Super Bowl XI to the Oakland Raiders. That made them 0-4 in Super Bowls, a total that would later be matched by the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. Through the 2021 season, the Vikings haven't even been to a Super Bowl since 1977. The Bills are still 0-4, but the Broncos have improved to 3-5.)

Viking fans have had to put up with a lot, but they still fume over the penalty that was not called on Staubach's pass. It wasn't a "Hail Mary, full of grace": It was full of disgrace. It remains the most infamous moment in the history of sports in the State of Minnesota.

The question needs to be asked, though: What if the penalty had been called? The Cowboys could still have won the game, anyway. Not for nothing was Staubach known as "Captain Comeback." And if the Vikings still won? They would have had to face the Rams in the NFC Championship Game, in Los Angeles. And if they'd won that, they would have had to face the Steel Curtain.

In this counterfactual scenario, I don't like their chances. They went to 4 Super Bowls between the seasons of 1969 and 1976, and they weren't the better team in any of them, and lost them all. So maybe their grievance over this game is bigger than it should be.

In hindsight, though, Pearson paid a price: It took until 2021 for him to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his 33rd year of eligibility. For years, fans have speculated that there is a general bias against the Cowboys for the Hall: Mel Renfro had to wait 14 years; Rayfield Wright, 22 years; Bob Hayes, 30 years (and died before being elected); Cliff Harris, 36 years; Chuck Howley, 45 years.

Some are still waiting to get in: Don Meredith and Don Perkins have been eligible since 1974 (and both are dead), Lee Roy Jordan since 1981, Charlie Waters since 1987, Jay Novacek since 2001, and Darren Woodson since 2010. Howley was elected in 2023, his 45th year of eligibility. He was 86 years old, but at least he was still alive. Jordan died earlier this year.

In Pearson's case, it seemed as though the statistical case was there: 489 receptions, 7,822 yards, 48 touchdowns, all big numbers for a 1970s receiver. It was widely believed that one play was keeping him out: Nobody had ever punished the Cowboys for this unfair result, so the Hall voters punished Pearson as an individual. Regardless, he is in now. And, unlike Hayes -- and the still-not-in Meredith, Perkins and Jordan -- he lived long enough to see it.

December 27, 2005: Rutgers Plays Its 1st Real Bowl Game

December 27, 2005, 20 years ago: For the 1st time, the football team at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, plays in a real postseason "bowl game."

It wasn't actually the first one. In 1978, frustrated over not having been selected for bowl games despite some fine seasons -- 8-1 in 1958, 8-1 in 1960, 9-0 in 1961, 8-2 in 1968, 7-4 in 1972, 7-3 in 1974, 9-2 in 1975, 11-0 in 1976, 8-3 in 1977 and finally 9-3 -- mainly due to a weak schedule, Rutgers started its own bowl, the Garden State Bowl.

It would be held at their secondary home field, the 77,000-seat Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey, 36 miles from their 23,000-seat Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, and 35 miles from their Student Center in New Brunswick, both in Middlesex County.

The Scarlet Knights invited Arizona State, which had faced a similar level of disrespect, because they had dominated the weak Western Athletic Conference, and had just joined the Pacific-8, making it the Pac-10. Maybe they should've invited a weaker team than Frank Kush's Sun Devils, who beat them, 34-18.

That was a badge of dishonor: The Scarlet Knights couldn't even win a bowl on their secondary home field. So, again, they weren't invited to bowls, despite going 8-3 in 1979, 7-4 in 1980, 7-3 in 1984, 6-4 in 1986, and 7-4 in 1992. In '92, a loss to Boston College really stung, not just because BC's quarterback, future New York Jet Glenn Foley, had been a Jersey Boy, from Cherry Hill, but because he told the postgame media, "The only bowl Rutgers is going to is the one I just got off of." Meaning the toilet.

The new Rutgers Stadium (now SHI Stadium) opened in 1994, but, having joined the Big East Conference, RU was not putting up bowl-worthy seasons. Greg Schiano was hired in 2001, and it took him until 2005 to put up a winning season, 7-4.

Finally, a bowl came calling. It wasn't a major bowl. It was the Insight Bowl, named for an Internet company. It had gone through several names: The Copper Bowl from its 1989 establishment until 1996, the Insight.com Bowl starting in 1997, just the Insight Bowl starting in 2002, the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl in 2012, the Cactus Bowl starting in 2015, the Cheez-It Bowl in 2018 and 2019, the Guaranteed Rate Bowl starting in 2020, and simply the Rate Bowl in 2024.

It was held at the University of Arizona's Arizona Stadium in Tucson from 1989 to 1999; then the Arizona Diamondbacks' Bank One Ballpark/Chase Field in Phoenix from 2000 to 2005; Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium (now Mountain America Stadium), in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, from 2006 to 2015; and Chase Field again ever since.

It is the Phoenix area's secondary bowl game, behind the Fiesta Bowl, which was played at Sun Devil Stadium from 1971 to 2006, and has been played at the Arizona Cardinals' home, now named State Farm Stadium, in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, since 2007.

So being invited to the Insight Bowl was not much respect. But it was more than Rutgers were used to, and it was a chance to spend Christmas week someplace considerably warmer than New Jersey, so they accepted the bid. As fate would have it, the opponent was the same as in the 1978 Garden State Bowl: Arizona State. The Sun Devils would be traveling 11 miles, so this would be more or less a home game for them. The Scarlet Knights would be traveling 2,386 miles.

At first, the long roadtrip didn't seem to faze Rutgers: Ryan Hart threw a touchdown pass to Clark Harris to give them a 7-0 lead. Arizona State answered with their own touchdown pass, but Hart threw another to Brian Leonard. Just before the 1st quarter ran out, Jeremy Ito kicked a 25-yard field goal. RU were up 17-7. Things were looking good.

The Sun Devils kicked a field goal to make it 17-10. Leonard ran for a touchdown to make it 24-10 Rutgers. But the Sun Devils scored to close to within 24-17 at the half.

In the 3rd quarter, Arizona State scored a tying touchdown, but Ito kicked another field goal to put RU back up, 27-24. Arizona State scored a touchdown to take their 1st lead, 31-27. Just before the end of the quarter, Ito kicked another field goal to make it 31-30 Sun Devils. Early in the 4th quarter, he kicked another to make it 33-31 Scarlet Knights.

Rutgers had a 4th quarter lead in a bowl game, in what was essentially a home game for the other team. This wasn't quite living the dream, but it sure looked like a building block toward reaching the dream.

But you can almost set your watch by the Rutgers defense collapsing. The Sun Devils scored a touchdown and a 2-point conversion, then another touchdown and a failed 2-point conversion. It was 45-33 Arizona State.

With 2 minutes left, Hart threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Tres Moses, closing RU to within 45-40. But they failed to recover the onside kick, and Arizona State ran out the clock to seal the win.

It was yet another failure for Rutgers, one of the most underachieving programs in college football. On the other hand, they had been invited to a bowl, and scored 40 points against a hometown team. That was something to take with them into the next year.

In 2006, Rutgers went 10-2, finishing 2nd in the Big East. They were invited to the Texas Bowl. It wasn't the biggest bowl in Texas -- that remains the Cotton Bowl in Dallas -- but at least, unlike the Insight Bowl, it was the biggest bowl in its own metropolitan area, Houston. Rutgers won this game rather easily, 37-10, for their 1st-ever bowl win.

It began a streak of 4 straight seasons with bowl wins, and 5 in 6 years. Rutgers has since won (these dates are for the season, not necessarily the calendar year) the International Bowl in Toronto in 2007, The PapaJohns.com Bowl in Birmingham in 2008, the St. Petersburg Bowl in 2009, the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in 2011 and 2023, and the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit in 2014. But the biggest bowl game they've ever been to, and it's still only a secondary bowl, is the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, in the 2021 season, losing to Wake Forest, 38-10.

December 27, 1975: The Pittsburgh Steelers Introduce the Terrible Towel

December 27, 1975, 50 years ago: The Pittsburgh Steelers, the defending NFL Champions, host the Baltimore Colts in an AFC Divisional Playoff at Three Rivers Stadium. In the stands, fans wave yellow dish towels, which became known as "The Terrible Towel."

At the time, the flagship of the Steelers' radio network was WTAE, 1250 on the AM dial. Two weeks before this game, Ted Atkins, the station's general manager, and Larry Garrett, the station's president of sales, went to Myron Cope, the Steelers' main broadcaster, who also had a sports-talk show on the station. They suggested that a "gimmick" -- an unusual device or idea that seems to have little value, but would attract an increased amount of attention -- which would attract sponsors to Cope's show.

Cope, a Pittsburgh native born Myron Sidney Kopelman, was then 46 years old, and had already won awards for writing for Sports Illustrated. He began his talk show on WTAE in 1968, and became the Steelers' main announcer when Three Rivers opened in 1970. At first, he didn't want to do a gimmick, saying, "I'm not a gimmick guy."

It wasn't true: Like other broadcasters in town, including the Pirates' Bob Prince and the Penguins' Mike Lange, he was known for catchphrases. Being Jewish, something good made him yell the Yiddish word, "Yoi!" Sometimes it would be good enough to be a "Double Yoi!" which became the title of his memoir. If something bad happened, he would use the Yiddish word, "Feh!" Instead of, "Okey dokey," he would say, "Okel dokel."

He gave some Steelers nicknames: Hard-hitting linebacker Jack Lambert was "Jack Splat." In the next generation of Steeler players, the big fullback Jerome Bettis became "The Bus," and Kordell Stewart -- said to be a quarterback/running back/receiver -- became "Slash." And he mocked opposing teams: The Cleveland Browns were the Brownies, the Cincinnati Bengals were the Bungles, the Dallas Cowboys were the Cryboys, and so on.

So he wasn't being fully honest when he said, "I'm not a gimmick guy." But Garrett told him that, if the gimmick worked, it would be good leverage when his contract came up for renewal. Hearing, this, Cope said, "I'm a gimmick guy!"

Pictured: A gimmick guy

So Cope, Atkins and Garrett started thinking about what kind of gimmick. Cope said it should be something "lightweight and portable, and already owned by just about every fan." Garrett thought of a small towel. Cope gave it the alliterative name, "The Terrible Towel." It would be in Steeler colors: While black with gold lettering was experimented with, it was correctly decided that gold with black lettering would show up better.

Garrett was enthusiastic. Atkins was not: He thought that, if the Steelers lost the game, the Towel would be seen as the reason why, a jinx. So Cope asked the players what they thought. Linebacker Jack Ham said, "I think your idea stinks." Older linebacker Andy Russell, paralleling what Cope had already said, said, "We're not a gimmick team. We've never been a gimmick team."

But that wasn't true, either. Three years earlier, a group of employees at an Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh quickly took to Franco Harris, the team's half-black, half-Italian rookie running back, wearing Army-style helmets, and sitting behind a banner reading, "FRANCO'S ITALIAN ARMY." Similar groups copied them. A group of Polish fans honored Ham with "JACK HAM DOBRE SHUNKA FAN CLUB." "Dobre shunka" is Polish for "Good ham." Running back John "Frenchy" Fuqua had Frenchy's Foreign Legion. Lambert had Lambert's Lunatics. Kicker Roy Gerela had Gerela's Gorillas.

Knowing this, Cope went to the most visible player on the team, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, and asked him, "How do you feel about the Terrible Towel?" According to Cope, Bradshaw said, "Huh?" And Cope later said, "I check him off as a 'Yes.'... I reported back to Ted Atkins that the Steelers overwhelmingly approved of the Towel." A little white lie -- or a little black and gold lie.

As the Steelers took the field for their Playoff game against the Colts, the fans whipped out their Towels and waved them around. Cope thought there were 30,000 of them, in a stadium that then seated a little over 50,000.

In the 1st quarter, Ham intercepted a pass from the Colts' Marty Domres. This set up a 34-yard pass from Bradshaw to Frank Lewis, which set up an 8-yard run by Harris, giving the Steelers a 7-0 lead. But the Colts led 10-7 at the half. Early in the 3rd quarter, Mel Blount intercepted a Domres pass, and took it to the Colts' 7-yard line. Rocky Bleier ran it in on the next play, giving the Steelers a lead they would not relinquish.

In the 4th quarter, Colt coach Ted Marchibroda, himself an unsuccessful Steeler quarterback in the 1950s, replaced Domres with Bert Jones. He did no better: He got to the Steelers' 7-yard line, but was hit by Ham, and fumbled. Of all people to pick it up, it was "not-gimmick-guy" Russell, who ran 93 yards, for the longest fumble return in NFL Playoff history at that point. Sports Illustrated called it "the longest, slowest touchdown ever witnessed." It put the cap on a 28-10 Steeler win.

(Russell's record stood until 2023, when Cincinnati Bengals defensive end returned one 98 yards against the Baltimore Ravens. The Bengals won.)

Steeler fan Lisa Benz wrote a poem about the game and the Towels, and sent it to Cope, who read it on the air. It concluded:

He ran ninety-three like a bat out of hell,
And no one could see how he rambled so well.
"It was easy", said Andy, and he flashed a crooked smile:
"I was snapped on the fanny by the Terrible Towel!"

So the gimmick worked. The next week, Gimbel's department stores all over Western Pennsylvania sold out of yellow and gold dish towels. Cope got rich off the idea. In 1996, he gave the rights to The Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in nearby Coraopolis, which cares for people with intellectual and physical disabilities. Cope's son Danny was autistic, and had attended the school. Proceeds from Towel sales have raised over $6 million for the school.

Having won Super Bowl IX the season before, the Steelers went on to win Super Bowl X. After 2 years of near-misses, they won Super Bowl XIII and Super Bowl XIV. The 2005 season, in which they went on to win Super Bowl XL, was Cope's retirement season. They won Super Bowl XLIII as well. They've also lost Super Bowl XXX and Super Bowl XLV.

*

A standard Terrible Towel, now bearing Cope's name, is 16-by-23-inches. It was the original sports-team gimmick, preceding the Cleveland Indians' "Hate the Yankees Hanky" by nearly 2 years, the Minnesota Twins' "Homer Hanky" by nearly 12 years, and the Atlanta Braves' foam Tomahawk by almost 16 years.

Because of their 1970s success, when they were frequently on television, the Steelers gained lots of fans in big cities whose teams weren't doing well at the time, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. (This is also true of the decade's other successful teams: The Dallas Cowboys, the Miami Dolphins, and the then-Oakland Raiders.) As a result, Steeler fans are everywhere.

And as a result of that, Steeler fans have taken their Towels everywhere: The Vatican in Rome, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Great Wall of China, Mount Everest on the China-Nepal border, the South Pole in Antarctica. Soldiers have taken them to war zones, including Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Pittsburgh-born rapper Wiz Khalifa put one in a video. Pittsburgh-born astronaut Mike Fincke took one to the International Space Station in 2009.

Making it the most "far out" piece of sports memorabilia ever.

Don't tell me Alan Shepard swung a golf club on the Moon:
He did, but golf is not a sport.

Although the Rooney family, owners of the Steelers since their founding in 1933, is Republican, team president Dan Rooney gave a Towel to Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when she campaigned in the 2008 Pennsylvania Primary. She won it, though she lost the nomination to Barack Obama.

In the general election, Rooney gave Obama one, and Rooney's ticket-splitting support may have made the difference in Obama winning the State. Obama rewarded him by appointing him U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, a post into which he was sworn in by Obama's Secretary of State -- Hillary Clinton. He served for 3 years.

*

But do not mock the Terrible Towel, nor misuse it. There is a Curse of the Terrible Towel. No, I'm not kidding. During player introductions for the Steelers' 1994 Playoff game against the arch-rival Browns, Brentson Buckner came out waving one, and dropped it. The Browns' Earnest Byner stepped on it, saying, "We don't care about your towel! We're going to beat you this time!" They did not, and less than a year later, the original version of the Browns was moved, becoming the Baltimore Ravens.

You would think that opponents would have learned from this, but some didn't. In 2005, T.J. Houshmandzadeh of the Bengals celebrated a touchdown by wiping his feet on one. The Bengals won, but the Steelers went on to beat them in the Playoffs, and the Bengals didn't win another Playoff game for 16 years. They didn't even make the Playoffs again until 4 years later -- after Houshmandzadeh had left the team.

Cope died on February 27, 2008. On September 29, Derrick Mason of the Ravens stepped on a Towel. The Steelers swept their Divisional games against the Ravens, and then beat them in the AFC Championship Game. On October 5, Jacksonville Jaguars mascot Jaxson de Ville celebrated a Jags touchdown against the Steelers by taking a Towel and scratching his armpits with it. The Steelers came from behind to win, and the Jags lost 8 of their last 11 games.

On December 21, the Tennessee Titans beat the Steelers, and LenDale White and Keith Bulluck celebrated by stomping on a Towel, and they ended up as the top seed in the AFC Playoffs, but lost at home to the Ravens, who then lost to the Steelers.

The Titans ended up losing 8 straight games, including their 2009 season opener against the Steelers and a 59-0 loss to the New England Patriots. NFL teams simply don't lose games by 59 points, but the Titans did. Head coach Jeff Fisher publicly apologized for the desecration of the Towel, bought a new one, had his players autograph it, and donated it to the Allegheny Valley School. Did that generous gesture remove the Curse? Apparently: The Titans won their next 5 games.

And to close the 2008 season, as the Arizona Cardinals prepared to play the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix hosted a pep rally at City Hall, invited Cards mascot Big Red to the stage, and handed him a Towel. Big Red proceeded to use the Towel to scratch his armpits and blow his nose (beak). The Steelers won.

After 4 such incidents in 1 season alone, you'd think people would've learned. Alas, in the closing minutes of a 2009 game in Detroit, the Steelers led by 8 points, but the Lions were marching down the field in the hope of a tying touchdown. Lions mascot Roary found a Towel, stepped on it, and ripped it apart with his teeth. Result: 3 straight sacks of Lion quarterback Daunte Culpepper, and a Steeler win. That same season, the Indianapolis Colts tried to pay tribute, issuing blue and white "Terrific Towels." It almost worked: They did reach Super Bowl XLIV, but lost to the New Orleans Saints. I guess the Saints had too much good karma stored up since Hurricane Katrina.

In 2014, Jaxson de Ville struck again. During a game with the Steelers in Jacksonville, he held up a Towel with one hand and a sign reading "Towels Carry Ebola" with the other. Not only did the Steelers win the game, but the Jags lost 13 of their next 17. In 2016, as the Steelers opened the season against the Washington Redskins, Washington punter Tress Way tweeted a video of his mother burning a Terrible Towel in a voodoo cemetery. The Steelers won.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are so dumb! (How dumb are they?) They're so dumb, they are a three-time loser when it comes to messing with the Terrible Towel. On October 29, 2023, they beat the Steelers, 20-10. During the game, several Jacksonville players took fans' Terrible Towels, mockingly waved them around, and dropped them. The team proceeded to finish the season 3-6, which included a loss in their final game against the Tennessee Titans, 28-20. This not only eliminated the Jaguars from playoff contention, but gave the Steelers the final AFC Playoff spot.

Even other sports are not immune to the Curse. On February 7, 2016, the Penguins were visiting the Florida Panthers, and trailed 2-0 with about 6 minutes left in regulation. Florida's mascot, Stanley C. Panther, blew his nose into a Terrible Towel. The Pens tied the game and won it in overtime. So, if you don't want horrible things to happen to you, leave the Terrible Towel alone.

Terrible Towels usually cost $10. I once attended a sports memorabilia show at the Wildwoods Convention Center on the Jersey Shore, and saw them for sale. I bought 2, keeping 1, and sending the other to a friend who's a big Steeler fan.

In 2011, some scenes for the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises were filmed in Pittsburgh. Three Rivers' replacement, then named Heinz Field and now named Acrisure Stadium, stood in for Gotham City's football stadium; and the fictional Gotham Rogues wore black and gold uniforms like the Steelers. Several real-life Steelers appeared, and the fans were given yellow towels with black lettering, labeled as "Rogue Rags."

The character of Bane (played by Tom Hardy) proceeded to destroy the stadium's field, and blow up the owner's luxury box, killing the Mayor (Nestor Carbonell). Granted, this was fiction, and it seemed more like the Rag was a tribute to the Towel rather than a parody, but it's still suspicious.

* 

December 26, 1955: Otto Graham Goes Out a Winner

December 26, 1955, 70 years ago: The NFL Championship Game is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was moved up a day, because, that year, December 25 fell on a Sunday, and the NFL refused to play on Christmas Day until 1971.

The Cleveland Browns were playing in a league championship game for the 10th straight year: The 1st 4 in the All-America Football Conference (1946-49), winning all 4 of those; and the last 6 in the NFL, having beaten the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, lost to the Rams in 1951, lost to the Detroit Lions in 1952 and 1953, and beaten the Lions in 1954. Now, they were playing the Rams again.

Quarterback Otto Graham had been there for all of those games. Under head coach Paul Brown, an offensive genius, he had been, in terms of results, the most successful quarterback in pro football history. (Sure, Tom Brady later got teams into 10 championship games under the Super Bowl name, all within the NFL. But Graham did 10 in a row, and matched Brady with 7 wins. And Graham never had to cheat.)

Graham had retired after the 1954 Championship Game, but Brown talked him into returning for 1 more season. He led the Browns to a 9-2-1 record. They opened with a loss to the Washington Redskins, but shrugged it off to beat the San Francisco 49ers away, the Philadelphia Eagles at home, the Redskins away, the Green Bay Packers at home, the Chicago Cardinals away, and the New York Giants at home.

In addition to Graham, the Browns still had receiver Dante Lavelli, center Frank Gatski, tackle and placekicker Lou Groza, and defensive end Len Ford, who would all be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So would Brown. So would linebacker Chuck Noll, albeit as the later head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Browns lost to the Eagles in Philadelphia, then beat the Steelers at home. They could only manage a tie with the Giants in New York, then won away to Pittsburgh, and closed by beating the Cardinals at home.

The Rams were coached by Sid Gillman, whose innovations in the passing game had begun to rival those of Paul Brown. They had finished 8-3-1, with 2 of their losses inflicted by the Chicago Bears. They still finished ahead of the Bears, who went 8-4.

The Rams still had several of the players who beat the Browns in the 1951 title game, including quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and his top 2 receivers, Tom Fears and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, all of whom would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So would Gillman, and linebacker Les Richter. Running back Paul "Tank" Younger and defensive tackle Gene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb have not yet been elected to the Hall, but should be.

And, this being an odd-numbered year, the Western Division winners would have the home-field advantage. And the Coliseum was the only stadium in the NFL that seated more than the Browns' Cleveland Municipal Stadium, so 87,695 fans came out, supporting the blue and gold, rather than the orange and white.

Groza kicked a 43-yard field goal to give the Browns a 3-0 lead at the end of the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter featured several big plays, including Don Paul intercepting Van Brocklin, and returning it 65 yards for a touchdown, to make it 10-0 Browns; Van Brocklin throwing a 67-yard touchdown pass to Volney "Skeet" Quinlan, closing the Rams to within 10-7; and Graham throwing a 50-yard touchdown pass to Lavelli, giving the Browns a 17-7 halftime lead.

Graham himself ran the ball in for 2 touchdowns in the 3rd quarter, and the Browns led, 31-7. In the 4th quarter, Graham's last touchdown pass was 35 yards to Ray Renfro. Ron Waller scored from 4 yards out to give the Rams a consolation score, and the Browns won, 38-14.

It was the 7th league championship, the 3rd in the NFL, for Graham and Paul Brown. It would be the last. Graham retired again, and, this time, stuck with it. Brown led the Browns until 1962, before being fired by new owner Art Modell. He later founded the Cincinnati Bengals.

Gillman would further develop his passing ideas, and led the San Diego Chargers to the 1963 AFL Championship. Bill Walsh, who served as an assistant on the Bengals under Brown, and also under on the Oakland Raiders under Al Davis, who had been an assistant on the Chargers under Gillman, would coach the San Francisco 49ers to 3 Super Bowl wins.

Under the new regime, the Browns won the Championship in 1964 -- and haven't reached a world championship game since. The Rams would fare little better, not reaching another until Super Bowl XIV in the 1979 season, and losing. They moved to St. Louis in 1995, won Super Bowl XXXIV in the 1999 season, lost Super Bowl XXXVI in the 2001 season, moved back to Los Angeles in 2016, and have lost Super Bowl LIII in the 2018 season and won Super Bowl LVI in the 2021 season.

Graham started his professional career wearing Number 60, from 1946 to 1951. From 1952 onward, he wore Number 14. The Browns retired that number, and also named him to their Ring of Honor. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in its 3rd class, in 1965.

He later served as head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins, and as head coach and athletic director at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. In 1999, he was ranked 7th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, trailing only Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas among quarterbacks. He died in 2003.

In 2010, the NFL Network ranked Graham 16th on its list of the 100 Greatest Players, among quarterbacks trailing only Montana, Unitas, Peyton Manning and the even earlier Sammy Baugh, but not yet Tom Brady. He was named to the NFL's 50th Anniversary Team in 1969, its 75th Anniversary Team in 1994, and its 100th Anniversary Team in 2019. Also in 2019, a statue of Graham was dedicated outside Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland.

December 25, 1875: The Death of Young Tom Morris

Young Tom Morris

December 25, 1875, 150 years ago: It is not a merry Christmas in St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. "Young Tom" Morris, an early golf legend, and the son of an early golf legend known as "Old Tom" Morris, dies there. He is only 24 years old. He had recently played a match in terrible weather, and probably caught pneumonia.

Old Tom Morris

Although it would be a Scotsman, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, it would be decades before it could have saved Young Tom, who had also recently lost his wife and child in childbirth, and, between his grief and his illness, may have lost the will to live.

Thomas Mitchell Morris, born in 1821 in St. Andrews, lived on until 1908, as "The Grand Old Man of Golf." His son, named only Thomas Morris, was born in 1851 in St. Andrews. That town, home of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the site of 30 British Opens (but never, through 2022, a Ryder Cup), is still "the Home of Golf," partly because of the legacy of the Tom Morrises.

December 25, 1875 was a Saturday. There were no American sports on this day: Although both football and basketball would come to be associated with Christmas Day, the former barely existed, and its last game of the season was played on December 4; and the latter wasn't even invented for another 16 years.

But there was soccer in Britain, including in the Morrises' native Scotland. The 1st Edinburgh Derby is played at a park known as The Meadows. Heart of Midlothian defeat Hibernian 1-0.

This is the oldest remaining senior "derby" in the world, older than the "Old Firm" in Glasgow, with similarities: Like Rangers, "Hearts" were founded as an all-Protestant side; while, like Celtic, "Hibs" ("Hibernia" was the Roman Empire's name for Ireland) were founded as a team for Catholic immigrants from Ireland. The colors are also similar: Like Celtic, Hibs wear green and white stripes; while Hearts wear blue, albeit a darker blue than Rangers.

In the modern era, the teams frequently play each other on the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, but not in the 1875 season. The teams will play this Saturday, December 27. In all matches, including competitive ones and exhibitions -- "friendlies," in British soccer parlance -- Hearts have won 292, Hibs have won 209, and there have been 166 draws.

Problematic Christmas Songs -- 2025 Edition

'Twas the night before Christmas

and through the Tri-State Area

it's our duty to each other

to care and to take care o' ya.

In the cabinet are bagels.

In the fridge is the jam

and also the pork roll.

It's not "Taylor ham."

The children are nestled

in their beds made of wood

hoping that St. Nicholas

will buy that they were good.

And with the stereo playing

and the tube showing "Yule Log"

I return to this annual

feature of my blog:

Problematic Christmas Songs.

Let's start with the biggest Christmas song of all: "Jingle Bells."  It was written in 1850 by James Lord Pierpont at Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts, outside Boston. It was published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. 

Guess what: This song has nothing to do with Christmas! The lyrics make no mention of Christmas. Or Jesus, by any name: Christ, Lord, King, King of Kings, King of Israel, King of the Jews, King of the World, King of Heaven, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, Holy Child, Teacher, Rabbi, Wonderful Counselor... none of them.

Nor do the lyrics make any mention of presents, or a gathering family, or even Santa Claus and his entourage (Mrs. Claus, reindeer, elves, whoever else he's got up at the North Pole). "Jingle Bells" is about Winter. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas. It could be sung at any time from December 1 through March 31 -- or, if you prefer, from Thanksgiving through Easter. (Or, in Minnesota, even longer than that.)

On Halloween, October 31, 2025, I thought of this weird coincidence: Just as "Jingle Bells" is the most familiar Christmas song, but doesn't mention Christmas, the most familiar Halloween-oriented song is "Monster Mash." Not only does that song not mention Halloween, but it doesn't mention ghosts. It mentions a monster, implied to be the Frankenstein Monster. It mentions vampires, including Dracula. There's ghouls, zombies, the Wolf Man, Rocky Horror, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant Igor, coffin-bangers and crypt-kickers. But no ghosts: The first supernatural creature we usually think of, and the best-known Halloween-themed song, and they don't go together.

The title was adapted for the 1st rock and roll song to be about Christmas, "Jingle Bell Rock," written in 1957 by 

Joe Beal and 

Jim Boothe, and a hit for Bobby Helms. The B-side of the record -- this is one for the "I swear, I'm not making this up" file -- was 

"Captain Santa Claus (and His Reindeer Space Patrol)"

Apparently, the Batman variation goes back at least as far as 1966, when fans of the TV series sang it, and has been cited in later Batman media: "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, the Batmobile just lost its wheel, and the Commissioner broke his leg!" (Alternatively, "and the Joker got away!" even though, unlike "the Commissioner broke his leg," it doesn't rhyme.)

Then there are the songs that someone (I forget who) once described as "songs Dean Martin liked to sing to get a woman to snuggle up with him by the fireplace." "Winter Wonderland," by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith, 1934; "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, 1945; "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," by Irving Berlin, 1937; and "A Marshmallow World" by Carl Sigman and Peter DeRose, 1949.

Now, I'm not gonna rip Dino, or say that these aren't nice songs. But they don't have anything to do with Christmas, either. They're about Winter, not about Christmas. And since we associate Christmas with Winter, regardless of Scripture suggesting that it didn't happen during Winter (not to mention that there's no snow mentioned in any of the Gospels), we associate these songs with Christmas, however erroneously.

One of the Dean Martin fireplace songs (which also doesn't have anything to do with Christmas) that most certainly is not nice, and goes far beyond even naughty, is "Baby, It's Cold Outside," written in 1944 by Frank Loesser. In recent years, due to the #MeToo movement, this one has come under intense scrutiny.

The woman in the song says she has to go, that her mother will worry, that she's got a reputation to protect. And the man she's with keeps telling her that it's cold outside, that there's no cabs to be had, that she should stay. "Well, maybe just half a drink more," she finally relents. (Dean Martin with booze on hand? How out of character... ) And then, just 2 lines later, she asks, "Say, what's in this drink?"

So on the 12th day of Christmas, your true love gave to you... 12 roofies roofing? That's why this is known as "The Date Rape Christmas Song," and it is inappropriate on so many levels. At the very least, it's about a guy working way too hard to seduce a girl, and using Old Man Winter (if not the Christmas season itself) as an excuse.

"Sleigh Ride," written in 1948 by Leroy Anderson, is another song like that, although considerably more innocent. The most familiar version is by Johnny Mathis. Johnny is openly gay, and this had been rumored for some time before he came out, but I never believed it until a few too many listens to him sing, "Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too... "

Come to think of it, the song also mentions "a Winter fairyland." Johnny's a great singer, even at age 89, making him perhaps the last survivor of the canon of "Classic Christmas Songs." But this song does him no favors.

"Frosty the Snowman" also has nothing to do with Christmas. It was written in 1950 by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson, and the lyrics make no mention of the holiday. It wasn't until the 1969 CBS TV special, narrated by an animated Jimmy Durante (as if the great comedian wasn't already quite animated, ah-cha-cha-cha!), that Frosty (voiced by another great comedian, Jackie Vernon) got an official link with Christmas.

And, as a fellow Yankee-themed blogger pointed out, the song begins, "Frosty the Snowman was a happy jolly soul." "Was"? Not "is"? What happened? Is he dead now? As in melted? Or is he just unhappy? Maybe he's only mad that he didn't get any royalties from the song.

Also weird about Frosty: If he's so afraid of heat, why does he have a pipe? And "two eyes made out of coal"? And, as was once pointed out to me, no matter how fat a snowman (and he did kind of resemble the portly Vernon), his walking wouldn't sound like "Thump-ety-thump-thump." He's made of snow, walking on snow. It would sound more like "Swish, swish, swish."

"Winter Wonderland," "Marshmallow World," "Sleigh Ride" and "Frosty the Snowman" appear on the 1963 classic A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records – better known as The Phil Spector Christmas Album. Talk about problematic: Like many people who achieved greatly, Spector also did some awful things -- in his case, horrific things, and his great art (he called it "The Wall of Sound") cannot overcome that.

Another song on that album is "The Bells of St. Mary," written in 1917 by A. Emmett Adams and Douglas Furber, following Furber's visit to St. Mary's Church in Southampton, England. This song is also not about Christmas: The lyrics mention "red leaves," suggesting that it takes place in Autumn).

The song says the bells, "they are calling the young loves, the true loves who come from the sea." This makes no sense if you only know the song from the Spector album. But knowing it was written in Southampton, Britain's biggest seaport, during World War I, provides the explanation: The bells are welcoming sailors coming home.

It was linked to Christmas by being selected as the title song from a 1945 Christmas-themed movie, The Bells of St. Mary's (note the added apostrophe S, which the song doesn't have) starring Bing Crosby as Father Chuck O’Malley (he'd won an Oscar in the role in the previous year's Going My Way), and Ingrid Bergman as Sister Mary Benedict, the most beautiful nun you'll ever see. (Eat your heart out, Julie Andrews. And the real Maria von Trapp was no looker.)

The album had 13 songs, 5 of which are not Christmas-related. The highlights, in my opinion, are Veronica Bennett -- Phil's girlfriend and eventual ex-wife, who became known as Ronnie Spector --  singing "Frawsty the Snowman" in her N'Yawk accent; and Darlene Love belting out the album's one original song, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."

Phil demanded an original song for the album, and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote it, as they wrote (and would continue to write) so many songs he produced. Sonny Bono played percussion on the album, and if you listen closely, you can hear his eventual wife (and eventual ex-wife), Cher, singing backup on "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."

The rest of these, I’ll do in alphabetical order:

All I Want for Christmas Is You. One of the newest Christmas classics -- and even this one is now over 30 years old (1994) -- it seems harmless enough, even though those who hate it do so as intensely as those who love it. Indeed, it even seems to have the girl telling her guy to fight the commercialism of Christmas, that she doesn't need the kind of things that Eartha Kitt (and later Madonna) demanded in "Santa Baby."

But it also suggests that what she really needs is a man. So feminists tend to not like this one. To be fair, though, she doesn't say she needs him, only that she wants him -- which opens an entirely different can of worms. The song is rarely sung by a man to a woman, but when it is, it sounds a little stalkerish.

Mariah has had more Number 1 singles on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart than any solo performer, 19. (That's 1 more than Elvis Presley. Only The Beatles, with 21, have had more.) "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was not one of them on its original release. It was ineligible for inclusion, because it was not released commercially as a single in any physical format.

A new joke surrounding the song is that one sign of the Christmas season coming earlier and earlier every year is that "Every year, Mariah Carey gets thawed out sooner." The idea being that, now past her hitmaking days, she only appears at Christmas to sing this song. Some people who hate it engage in "Mariahgeddon" contests, to see who can go the longest without hearing it.

Streaming services have led to the song being "bought" more as Christmas approaches. In its December 21, 2019 issue, Billboard listed "All I Want for Christmas Is You" as Number 1 on its Hot 100, setting a new record for longest time from original release to chart-top: 25 years. It's gotten there again every year since.

But because of the streaming issue, Billboard's Hot 100 for its December 21, 2024 issue also has Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" at Number 2, Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" at Number 3, Wham!'s "Last Christmas" at Number 4, and Burl Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" at Number 5. The highest-ranking non-Christmas song is at Number 6: "Die With a Smile," a duet by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.

In addition to the streaming services, I blame the return of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on Love Actually, the 2003 British "cast of thousands" film, which people tend to either adore or despise. (I've watched it once, and once is enough.) It had the song sung by Olivia Olson, then 11 years old, in a school Christmas pageant.

Another Rock and Roll Christmas. This one came out in 1984, and it sounds pretty good. But it's by Gary Glitter, who became famous in 1972 with "Rock and Roll Part II," a.k.a. "The Hey Song," and became infamous in 1997 for his arrest on what would once have been called "morals charges."

Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns, Scotland's unofficial poet laureate, wrote this song in Scots Gaelic in 1788. Somehow, it got associated with Hogmanay, the Scottish version of New Year's Eve celebrations.

Starting in 1929, Guy Lombardo and his big band, the Royal Canadians, played it just after midnight, first over radio and then on television, on CBS from a major hotel in Midtown Manhattan: The Roosevelt Hotel until 1958, and then from 1959 until 1976 at the Waldorf Astoria. Lombardo died in 1977, but network broadcasts kept doing it, including The Tonight Show on NBC and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC (even now, after Clark's own death).

But the song has nothing to do with Christmas. So why do we associate it with December 25 along with December 31/January 1? My guess is because it was used at the end of the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. So, blame Frank Capra.

Carol of the Bells. Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych wrote it as a New Year's song, not a Christmas song. In 1936,  American composer Peter Wilhousky wrote English lyrics for it, and it became a Christmas song.

The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late). I can't believe I never included this one before.

Ross Bagdasarian had a Number 1 hit with the novelty song "Witch Doctor" earlier in 1958, speeding up his recording so that it sounded like he'd inhaled some helium. And, being of Armenian descent, he anglicized his stage name to David Seville.

Liberty Records wanted him to do a copycat record for Christmas, so he named his 3 chipmunks after company executives: Simon Waronker, Ted Keep and Al Bennett, who became Simon, Theodore, and... Alvin!

Bagdasarian was very savvy: He knew the biggest toy craze of '58 was the hula hoop, and it was easy enough to rhyme that with "Want a plane that loop-de-loops." The song was released on November 11, and hit Number 1 on December 22, staying there for 4 weeks, well past Christmas.

The song was re-released in 1959, was a hit again, and earned Bagdasarian an appearance with puppet versions of The Chipmunks on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 13, 1959. He died in 1972, and his son, Ross Jr., took over the franchise, turning it into new albums and TV cartoons in which he voiced the David Seville character, and a series of CGI-aided live-action films starring Jason Lee as Dave.

Some people can hardly stand to hear those high-pitched Chipmunk voices. But, for years, I thought "We can hardly stand to wait" was "We can hardly, Santa, wait." I mean, as mistakes go, it makes sense.

The Christmas Shoes. The idea of this comparatively recent song, recorded in 2000 by Christian group NewSong, is, on the surface, heartwarming: One of those, "And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown" moments:

A guy on line at the cash register, having driven himself nuts shopping for Christmas presents, hears a kid tell the cashier he has to get these shoes for his dying mother, so that she can be presentable when she appears before Jesus, and he doesn't have the money for them, so the guy pays for the shoes for the kid. Certainly, a beautiful gesture.

On the other hand, it might be the biggest downer in the history of Christmas songs. This song isn't about life, it's about death. If it was "a real Christmas song," the mom should be so thrilled by such a beautiful gesture, from both son and stranger, that she gets better, and enjoys many more Christmases to come.

And, if it was a Hallmark Christmas movie, the guy wouldn't have shaved for four days, and he'd meet the mom, whose husband, the kid's father, ran off long ago; and, once the mom recovered, they'd get married.

Real life tends to not work that way, but "Christmas miracles" do. Why not sing about that? After all, NewSong, are you Christian in just name, or also in deed?

The Christmas Song – better known by its opening line: "Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire." Mel Tormé wrote it, and Nat King Cole is its best-known performer, with his 1946 recording. "And so, I'm offering this simple phrase, to kids from 1 to 92... " So, for everyone age 93 and up, you're out of luck? Sorry, Dick Van Dyke. Tough cookies, Old Man Periwinkle.

Deck the Halls. The melody is Welsh, dating back to the 16th Century, while the English lyrics, written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant, date to 1862. A safe one, already in the public domain, with no mention of religion, good to open Christmas movies from A Christmas Story to the Hallmark cliché-fests.

But there's the line, "Don we now our gay apparel." Once, this meant, "Let's all put on some bright clothing to commemorate this festive season." Now, it means, "Sweetheart, even Nicki Minaj wouldn't be caught dead wearing that!"

I've gone on social media and asked a few people with rainbow flag icons in their bio if it's okay to still use the line. So far, all have said it is.

And I'm guessing "Troll the ancient Yuletide carol" means "Please sing an old Christmas song." It could be worse, I suppose: You could be calling a woman "Carol the ancient Yuletide troll!"

Do They Know It's Christmas? "Band Aid," a group of British and Irish singers, led by Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof and Ultravox lead singer James "Midge" Ure, who co-wrote it, released this single for hunger relief in 1984.

The song raised a great deal of money, not all of which got to the people who needed it to get the food to the people who needed that. It inspired an American answer, "We Are the World," and the Live Aid concert the following Summer.

The answer to the question was, "Not necessarily." Ethiopia then had a Communist government, which banned all religious holidays. Before that, the country's people were largely Orthodox Catholic, thus celebrating Christmas 2 weeks later than most Christians, on January 7. There is also the Rastafarian tradition, which holds that Ethiopians are one of the lost tribes of Israel, that their since-deposed monarchy was descended from the affair of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and that the the Queen took the Ark of the Covenant to the Ethiopian city of Axum.

To many, the song seemed less like a plea for help for people who badly needed it than an attempt to make people feel guilty for having what they had. Bono of U2 seemed to hammer this home with a much-parodied line: "Well, tonight, thank God it's them, instead of you!"

Fairytale of New York. Shane MacGowan of The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl sang this duet in 1987, and it is not a song whose lyrics are fit for this post. The short, clean version is that, for the couple in the song, the fairy tale did not come true.

Kirsty was killed in a maritime accident in 2000; while Shane, born on Christmas Day 1957, finally had his excesses catch up with him in 2023.

Feliz Navidad. The only problem I have with this one is that it's incredibly repetitive. It was good of José Feliciano to write a Christmas song that kids whose first language was Spanish can sing, but couldn't he have written a second verse?

He could have made it "Joyeux Noël," for French-speakers, including people in Quebec. He could have dovetailed the Spanish "Prospero año y felicidad" (A prosperous year and felicity/happiness) with the French, "Prosperité en l'an nouvelle" (Prosperity in the new year), which would have rhymed with "Joyeux Noël."

Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. What a terrible thing to have to think about at Christmastime! As B.J. Hunnicutt taught us on M*A*S*H, "A family's Christmas wreaths ought to be green, not black." On top of that, lemme tell ya somethin': My Grandma was from Queens, and if any reindeer had ever tried to run her over, she'd have popped him one, and then you'd know how he got the red nose!

The original performers from 1979, Elmo and Patsy Shropshire (then married to each other) dropped a seemingly innocent couplet: "We're so very proud of Grandpa. He's been taking it so well. See him in there, watching football, drinking beer and playing cards with Cousin Mel." Then, in 1985, came the video, and "Cousin Mel" is revealed to be... a considerably younger woman, probably named Melissa, Melanie, or Melody. And she might not be a real cousin, but rather his side piece. Could they have conspired to bump Grandma off for the chance to be together -- and for the insurance money?

Then, in 2000, came an animated TV special based on the song. As it turned out, while the evidence available to the other characters suggested that something awful happened to Grandma, she recovered from her incident, but with amnesia, and wandered off. To his credit, Santa finds her, takes her to the North Pole, and takes care of her until her memory comes back. And, yes, Cousin Mel, while an actual relative, is the villain of this version of the story.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane wrote this for the 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis. "Make the Yuletide gay." Yeah, another one of those. Made even more problematic by the fact that the song was introduced by Judy Garland. 

Holly Jolly Christmas. The song was written by Johnny Marks, and introduced by Burl Ives in the 1964 TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which was based on another song that Marks wrote). It certainly seems jolly and innocuous enough -- until you get to the line, "Somebody waits for you. Kiss her once for me."

Bump that! If she's waiting for me, I'm kissing her for nobody but myself! It reminds me of George Carlin's rant about the line, "Give her my best." (Said rant is too risqué to discuss in a Christmas-themed post.)

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. British songwriter Tommie Connor wrote it in 1952, and it was sung by Jimmy Boyd, then 13 years old, and later to marry Batgirl actress Yvonne Craig. He should not be confused with the Jim Boyd who played J. Arthur Crank, Paul the Gorilla, and other characters on the 1971-77 PBS kids show The Electric Company.

Dumb Donald is so dumb! (How dumb is he?) He's so dumb, he appears to be unaware that the guy he sees in the Santa suit is actually his father! Or, worse, he appears to be not particularly troubled by the fact that his mother is kissing a man who (he thinks) is not her father. Either way, this is not a very bright kid.

Please, save the "Santa only comes once a year" joke. That, too, is too risqué.

To make matters worse, there's a version of this song sung by... the Jackson 5, back when they were first big. So, that explains Michael Jackson... I wonder if he ever asked a child to sit on his lap.

I'll Be Home For Christmas. Another one from Der Bingle, written in 1943 by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent, and it sounds like a soldier in World War II singing to his girl "on the home front."

"You can count on me," the singer says. But he closes by saying, "I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams." So, can she count on you, or not?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. Written in 1951 by Meredith Willson, who went on to write the musical The Music Man.

"Take a look in the five-and-ten." Sadly, there are now very few five-and-ten-cent (or "five-and-dime") stores -- many of which were in chains. Woolworth's, J.J. Newberry's and McCrory's all closed in 2001. Now we have "dollar stores" -- or, as they're known in Britain, "poundshops."

Another line: "There's a tree in the grand hotel, one in the park as well." Well, I should hope there's a lot more than one tree in the park! I know, I know, Perry Como meant that one of the trees in the park was a Christmas tree.

It gets worse: "A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen." The gender stereotypes are troubling enough. But putting a gun in a kid's hand is completely irresponsible, especially now, with the Newtown Massacre happening so close to Christmas a few years ago.

Before Peter Billingsley starred in the 2022 sequel A Christmas Story Christmas, I wondered if I would one day see a version of A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Past is a grown-up Ralphie Parker with an eye patch, saying, "See? I actually did shoot my eye out!"

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. This one came out in 1953, written by John Rox, and sung by Gloria Peavey, then 10 years old. It was actually a hit, reaching Number 24 on Billboard's pop music chart. It's been called one of the most annoying Christmas songs of all time, but, I swear, I am not making this up: As far as I can remember, I literally never heard this song, or even heard of it, until re-doing this post on December 24, 2025.

This song ties into the problem of "The Twelve Days of Christmas": If you get it, where are you gonna put it, and how are you gonna care for it? At least Alvin the Chipmunk topped his list with nothing more troublesome than a hula hoop.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. Oh, no you don't. Look at all the places that are closed on Christmas. If you need to buy something, you'll have to get it at 7-Eleven or Wawa or someplace like that. And you will have to get things. You think it's easy to shop for everyone you love for one day a year? Multiply that by 365! Song written in 1973 by Roy Wood, formerly of The Move, then with the band Wizzard.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Edward Pola and George Wyle wrote it in 1963, for a Christmas album by Andy Williams. "There'll be scary ghost stories... " Uh, excuse me, gentlemen, but I think you're getting your holidays mixed up!

True, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has ghosts in it, but how old were you when you stopped being scared of those ghosts? Even when I saw my 1st version of it -- the 1962 Mr. Magoo version, when I was about 6 or so, in the 1970s -- I wasn't scared of them.

A few of these are played over the speakers in stores, and get repeated as often as Top 40 radio repeats the Top 10 hits. I was working in a Sears store at Christmas 2002, and got sick of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Between the endless repeating of Andy's sugary vocals, the knowledge that his 1962-71 NBC variety show introduced the world to the Osmond family and their even more sugary songs, and the fact that he was one of the few of the old-time Christmas singers then still alive made me want to kill him. I mean, not really, but, certainly, to tell him to shut up.

I never got to meet him, but everybody who did seems to think he was a wonderful guy. He also boosted the careers of Dick Van Dyke, Jonathan Winters and Ray Stevens. Williams passed away in 2012.

Since the 1990s, Target has annually used this song for its Back to School Sale, showing parents joyfully shopping for school supplies, suggesting that early September, when the kids get out of the house and go back to school, is "the most wonderful time of the year."

Last Christmas. One of the more recent ones, from 1984. First of all, it's by Wham! Second of all... Do I even need a "second of all"?

Despite the video in which George Michael and Katy Hill play the story's couple, the lyrics certainly suggest that it's the first gay song to be a Christmas classic: "A face on a lover with a fire in his heart, a man under cover but you tore me apart." That's not an issue for me.

The issue for me is that it's a bad song. There are "blue Christmas" songs -- "blue" as in sad, not "blue" as in "blue language" -- but this one, even if the "man under cover" is the narrator, not his target, is lame as heck.  And did I mention it's by Wham?

I'm definitely not the only ones who don't like it: Tomas and Hannah Mazzetti, a couple who, in spite of the surname, live in Sweden, hate the song so much, they're raising money to buy the rights to it, so they can prevent it from being played on the radio. According to George Michael's estate, the price is at least $15 million. Sounds like we're stuck with it.

In 2019, the title was used for a film about a party girl played by Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke, who (Spoiler Alert) discovers that her boyfriend isn't real. He's dead -- and the reason she's alive, because of her heart transplant: Last Christmas, he (or, rather, the hospital) gave her his heart. That's why she's hallucinating him.

Little Saint Nick. The Beach Boys' 1963 contribution to Christmas songs is a guilty pleasure of mine: I'm not a "car guy," but I love how they make Santa's sleigh sound like a hot rod. And the firm of Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, Love and Jardine do manage to do what Die Hard can't: Make Southern California sound like a good place to be at Christmastime.

But they have a little problem with counting: "Haulin' through the snow at a frightenin' speed, with a half a dozen deer, with Rudy to lead." Half a dozen is 6. There's supposed to be 8 -- 9, counting Rudolph. In this song, Big Red is 2 reindeer short. Well, there is that hoary old joke about Comet staying home to clean the sink, but that still leaves 1 reindeer unaccounted for.

Merry Xmas Everybody. Slade came out with this one in 1973. Maybe we can get over the idea of Noddy Holder trying to bring people Christmas cheer. But the 1st verse has him asking of Santa, "Does he ride a red-nosed reindeer? Does a ton-up on his sleigh? Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?" ("A ton-up" sounds like a booze or drug reference, but it's actually a British term for going 100 miles per hour on a motorcycle.)

Noddy makes a good effort to redeem himself in the 2nd verse: "Does your granny always tell ya that the old songs are the best? Then she's up and rock-and-rolling with the rest." Then comes the bridge, when he asks the question that Jimmy Boyd didn't dare face: "What will your daddy do when he sees your mama kissing Santa Claus?"

And the 3rd verse suggests that you might spend Christmas in the hospital, or "in hospital" was it would be said in Britain: "Do you ride on down the hillside in a boggy you have made? When you land upon your head, then you've been sleighed." (A "boggy" is a toboggan.) And Noddy closes by yelling "It's Christmas!" in such a shrill way that Scrooge and the Grinch might think they were right the first time.

My Favorite Things. Written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music, where it was debuted by Mary Martin, this song wouldn't appear to have anything to do with Christmas.

The lyrics do make mention of "brown paper packages tied up with strings." That suggests presents, but not necessarily Christmas presents. There's mentions of "sleigh bells" and "snowflakes," which suggests Winter, though not necessarily Christmas. And then there's "silver-white Winters that melt into Springs." Again, we're getting away from Christmas, in more ways than one.

In 1961, Julie Andrews sang the song in a Christmas special for The Garry Moore Show on CBS. This was a few months after the avant-garde instrumental version by The John Coltrane Quartet debuted. It's been included on Christmas albums since Jack Jones did it in 1964, a year before the film version starring Andrews as Maria von Trapp.

O Holy Night. Written in France in 1847 by Placide Cappeau, with music by Adolphe Adam, and English lyrics by John Sullivan Dwight, this is only problematic because there's some seriously high notes, high enough to make "Angels We Have Heard On High" sound like a doo-wop number.

It's also the song sung by the title character in Harry Chapin's song "Mr. Tanner," voiced by his band's bass guitarist, John Wallace, even though that song has nothing to do with Christmas.

O Tannenbaum. The original version was written in the 16th Century by German composer Melchior Franck. "Tannenbaum" is German for "fir tree." In 1819, August Zarnack, a German minister and collector of folk songs took the title and the melody, and re-wrote it as a love song, wondering why his girlfriend couldn't be as faithful as the branches of the fir tree. In 1824, Ernst Anschütz rewrote it, dropped the girlfriend, and wrote of how the tree was a symbol of hope and faithfulness through a long Winter. It took England to make it "O Christmas Tree" and a Christmas song.

The melody has been used for State Songs: "Maryland, My Maryland" (former), "Florida, My Florida" (former), "Michigan, My Michigan" (unofficial) and "The Song of Iowa" (official). It's been used as the Alma Mater of St. John's University in Queens, New York City; the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; St. Bonaventure University in Olean, New York; and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was also used as the outgoing National Anthem of the titular country in the 1988 film comedy Moon Over Parador. (The new one was to the tune of "Besame Mucho.")

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. In 1958, Johnny Marks, author of the original "Rudolph" song, tried his hand at writing Christmas songs for the first generation of rock and roll fans. That year, he wrote this song, which became Brenda Lee's 1st hit, at age 13. She became a bigger star, having 2 Number 1 hits in 1960, leading to this song's re-release, and it hit Number 3.

In 2023, this song was brought back, and Billboard had it listed at Number 1 -- setting new records: 65 years from introduction to chart-top, breaking Mariah's record; 63 years between Number 1s for Lee, breaking Cher's record of 24; and, still alive and performing at age 78, she broke the record for oldest performer with a Number 1 hit, set by Louis Armstrong in 1964, with "Hello, Dolly!" at 62. Musically speaking, this was a Christmas miracle.

But is the song "problematic"? Not really. Marks throws as many seasonal clichés as possible into the lyrics, and includes the first line of "Deck the Halls," which was, of course, already in the public domain in 1958.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Johnny Marks' masterpiece, written in 1949 to connect with a 1939 advertising campaign, and sung by Gene Autry, "The Singing Cowboy." Oy, where to begin with this one?

First, "All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names." Reindeer bullies at the North Pole. "Then one foggy Christmas Eve," Rudolph's prominent proboscis saves Christmas. "Then how the reindeer loved him." What a lousy bunch of fur-covered front-runners. I wonder if any of them ever said, "I'm sorry."

Someone who was once a friend and a fellow Yankee-themed blogger (but is no longer either, both by their choice) liked to once point out that, in the 1964 TV special based on the song, the story gets worse before it gets better: Even Santa himself gets on Rudolph's case – and on that of Donner, who in the story is the lead reindeer on the sleigh and Rudolph's father, for essentially passing on a genetic mutation (of which Donner himself appears to be only a carrier).

This is not one of Santa's better pop-culture representations. But, remember, this story isn't about Santa, it's about Rudolph. And Sam the Snowman (voice of Burl Ives) is giving you his perception of what happened. Sam might be an unreliable narrator.

Also, if you ever hear Dean Martin's version, you might note that both the singer and the subject are known for having a red nose, albeit with very different causes.

Run, Rudolph, Run. (That's the title, while the lyrics say, "Run, run, Rudolph.") The same year that Marks wrote "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," he cranked out "Run, Rudolph, Run," and gave it to Chuck Berry.

Elvis Presley may have been the 1st rocker to record a Christmas song, with "Blue Christmas" the year before; but it was written in 1948, by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson, and was first a hit the next year for country singer Ernest Tubb. Even Elvis' 1957 version hardly sounds like a rock and roll song. In contrast, the Chucker went out of his way to make "Run, Run, Rudolph" sound like a Chuck Berry song, and it works great. That's the (Johnny B.) good news.

The bad news is that the lyrics reinforce gender stereotypes. First, we have Santa asking a boy what he wants for Christmas, and he wants a guitar. No problem there. Then they have Santa asking a girl what she wants, and she wants a doll. In the Ike Age, this didn't raise too many hackles. Now, it does.

In 2006, Whitney Wolanin, then just 16 years old, recorded a new version, with the genders reversed: The girl wants the guitar, and the boy wants the doll.

Santa Baby. Ah, the joy of Christmas, where everybody wants something. Usually several somethings. As Kanye West would have said, back when he said nothing more offensive than this, "Now, I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger... "

But this song is also problematic on a practical level. A '54 convertible? Cars were huge in the Fifties. A yacht? A duplex? The ring could fit, the deed to the platinum mine could be folded up, but how exactly is Santa gonna get all that expensive loot into her stocking? He’s magic, the stocking is not! Okay, she does ask Santa to "slip a sable under the tree for me." I just got carried away, thinking Santa is only responsible for the stuff in the stockings.

Then again, considering the 1953 original, written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer, was sung by Eartha Kitt, maybe it's a long, slinky nylon stocking. As Bill Maher (on whose former show Politically Incorrect she guested a few times) would say, "Easy, Catwoman!"

To make matters worse, Eartha ended up dying on a Christmas Day, in 2008. James Brown, who recorded an album called Funky Christmas, also died on December 25, 2 years earlier. And the aforementioned Dean Martin died on December 25, 1994.

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934, this is another one for whom the best known version is by Gene Autry, in 1947, probably as a follow-up to a song Autry wrote and sang the year before, "Here Comes Santa Claus."

The Four Seasons had a hit with it in 1963, with lead singer Frankie Valli breaking into falsetto as he usually did. The same year, The Crystals sang it on the Phil Spector album, with 2 extra shouts of "San... ta Claus is comin' to town!" Bruce Springsteen would sort-of copy this version in 1978. Ray Charles did a soulful version in 1985. But the Autry version is still the most familiar.

This is probably the Christmas song most often-cited as problematic, because of the line, "He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake." Uh-oh, this makes Santa sound like something out of a George Orwell novel: "Big Brother is watching you."

Silver Bells. Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote it for the 1951 film The Lemon Drop Kid, where it was sung by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell (who were then fooling around behind the scenes). The writers had originally called it "Tinkle Bells," until Jay's wife, Lynne Gordon, said, "Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the word 'tinkle' is?"

With the title fixed, there's nothing wrong with this one, as far as I can tell. In fact, it's my favorite secular Christmas song. Elvis Presley recorded it in 1971. But there's one version of it that's not... quite... right. I'm sorry, but Wilson Pickett? The Wicked Pickett should not have been recording Christmas songs! It would have been like asking Karen Carpenter to sing "In the Midnight Hour"! (Then again, she did cover "Please Mr. Postman.")

And how neat -- and weird -- was it in December 2010, on Saturday Night Live, to hear Jeff Bridges, not known as a singer (though he and brother Beau did play pianists in The Fabulous Baker Boys), duet on this song with Cookie Monster of Sesame Street?

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime. Former Beatle Paul McCartney wrote this in 1979. How is it that his former musical partner, John Lennon, who dared to "Imagine there's no heaven... and no religion, too" -- not that he was saying there was no God or Heaven, just asking us to imagine a world where people had "nothing to kill or die for" -- wrote such a fantastic Christmas song, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," in 1971? While Paul, one of the world's greatest songwriters and one of its greatest sentimentalists, facing that most sentimental of holidays, wrote such a weak one?

Step Into Christmas. Elton John contributed this one to the Christmas canon in 1973. It's mostly standard stuff, but there's one red flag: "We can watch the snow fall forever and ever." For a few minutes, sure. For a few hours, maybe. But forever and ever? I don't think so!

(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays. Every place in this country has people trying to get back there for Christmas, because it's "home" to them. I have no issue with that. This song, written by Robert Allen and Al Stillman, and first done in 1954 by Perry Como, first mentions that the man trying to get home to Pennsylvania (Como's home State), is starting out (or, perhaps, stopping along the way) in Tennessee. No problem there, either.

But then he mentions people going "to Dixie's sunny shore." Even if you're not bothered by this glorification of the South (and I am), it doesn't fit with the whole "Christmas as Winter Wonderland" idea.

Also, when he sings, "From Atlantic to Pacific, gee, the traffic is terrific," whether he realizes it or not, he's using "terrific" in the original sense: Inspiring terror. If you've ever done Christmas shopping in Bergen County, New Jersey, where stores aren't permitted to open on Sundays, on the last Saturday before Christmas, you will understand. Christmas-shopping traffic and Christmas-travel traffic are not "terrific" as in "wonderful" or "jolly."

The Twelve Days of Christmas. The earliest known version of this one was published in 1780. As someone pointed out to me, this is the "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" of Christmas songs.

First of all, where did your true love get all that stuff? Second of all, where are you going to put it all? I mentioned George Carlin before, but I wonder if he ever incorporated this song into his bit "A Place For My Stuff."

A partridge, 2 doves, 3 hens, 4 calling birds, 6 geese, 7 swans? That's a lot of birds. Think of the mess! Five golden rings? I can see getting one, but 5? One for each finger on the hand? That doesn't make any sense, unless the singer is Elvis, Liberace, or Elton John. Or maybe Pink, or Pauley Perrette in character as Dr. Abby Sciuto of NCIS.

Six geese a-laying? Who uses goose eggs? Maybe one of the geese is "the goose that lays the golden egg." Eight maids a-milking? Maybe she already has 8 cows, but this is not specified in the song. Without cows, the milkmaids will have nothing to do.

Nine ladies dancing, ten lords a-leaping, eleven pipers piping, twelve drummers drumming? I hope they're all rented, because I can't imagine having them around every day, especially if none of them does anything else. Maybe one of the dancing ladies is also one of the milkmaids, and one of the leaping lords is also a piper or a drummer.

Also, what's so special about a partridge, to make it the centerpiece of the song? I looked it up: In Greek mythology, in a fit of jealous rage, Daedalus threw his nephew Perdix off a hill, and the gods turned him into the bird in question. Hence, a partridge makes his nest in a tree that's not too high off the ground, like a pear tree. In French, the bird is a "perdrix," pronounced "pair-DREE," which may have confused an Englishman.

But that still doesn't explain what any of these varieties of bird has to do with Christmas. The only explanation I can think of for any of them is that a goose is the traditional bird to serve as Christmas dinner in England. After all, you don't need all 6 geese still alive to lay the eggs.

There's also a theory that "five gold rings," which became "five golden rings" in America, was originally "five goldspinks," another name for a five-ringed pheasant. If true, it would explain why 6 of the 1st 7 were game birds common to England, but 1 wasn't: Actually, all 7 were game birds, usable as food; while the 8th gift was the maids a-milking, also providing food; and the last 4 were all entertainers. Also, the "calling birds" may originally have been "colly birds," meaning "coal black."

Underneath the Tree. Kelly Clarkson wrote this in 2013, and it is already being called the newest classic Christmas song. It has the same idea as "All I Want for Christmas Is You": "Presents, what a beautiful sight, don't mean a thing if you ain't holding me tight. You're all that I need, underneath the tree." Unless they're children, people usually don't fit under a Christmas tree. Unless she means... Nah, I can't imagine Kelly getting kinky for Christmas.

Up On the House Top. "First comes the stocking of little Will. Oh, just see, what a glorious fill. Give him a hammer and lots of tacks. Also a ball, and a whip that cracks."

Huh? Either the songwriter, Benjamin Hanby in 1864, just threw together a few words that rhyme, without thinking about how they would sound; or Santa has his priorities way out of whack; or little Will is into, uh, things that are too risqué to mention on Christmas. Maybe he's not so little.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas. This one's source is unknown, but the familiar arrangement dates to Arthur Warrell, for the University of Bristol Madrigal Singers in 1935.

The 2nd verse begins, "Now, bring us some figgy pudding." Have you ever eaten figgy pudding? Have you ever even seen figgy pudding? Until November 23, 2016, neither had I.

But, that day, on the way down to our Thanksgiving weekend getaway in Ocean City, Maryland, we stopped off in the Philadelphia suburb of Haddonfield, New Jersey. Across the street from the British Chip Shop, producer of fabulous pub food, there is a store owned by the same people, the English Gardener Gift Shop, which sells British- (English, Scottish and Welsh) and Irish-themed items, including products normally available only over there, like Walker's crisps (what we, not they, would call "chips"), Branston pickle (a chutney), and Irn Bru (a Scottish variation on orange soda).

Among the British delicacies they sell is, yes, figgy pudding -- which, like Yorkshire pudding, black pudding, white pudding, plum pudding and even blood pudding, is basically what the British call a fruitcake. None of them resemble what we might call chocolate, rice or tapioca pudding.

The 4th and final verse says, "We won't go until we get some." Where is a family that doesn't have any figgy pudding gonna go to get some on Christmas Eve (or Day)? If there's a Jewish deli open (which once saved my mother when she needed wild rice for Christmas dinner), something tells me they're not going to have figgy pudding, either. However, I have asked, and, it could be Kosher.

What's more, the person being sung to could easily say, "This is my house, and when I say you go, you go. Don't make me break out my Ralphie Red Ryder BB gun."

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Even the songs that are about the original Christmas – the Christ Mass – don't always make sense. Again, I'll do these in alphabetical order.

Angels We Have Heard On High. This song is French, dating to 1862. The original author is unknown, with Englishman James Chadwick translating it. It's only problematic if you can't hit the high notes, especially in the chorus of, "Gloria in excelsis Deo!" which is Latin for "Glory to God in the highest," with "Gloria" dragged out to a length difficult for most singers.

Ding, Dong, Merrily On High. George Ratcliffe Woodward wrote this in 1924. It contains the words, "Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!" This is reminiscent of "Angels We Have Heard On High." "Hosanna" is a reference to saving, thus to Jesus as "Savior."

Like "Angels We Have Heard On High," the "Gloria" is dragged out, with notes too high for most people to sing. Did we really need a second song like that? Someone with knowledge of Latin pointed out that the grammar was wrong: Instead of "Hosanna in excelsis," it should be "In excelsis Hosanna."

Do You Hear What I Hear? Léon Schlienger, perhaps getting into the Christmas spirit by writing as "Noël Regney," wrote the lyrics, and Gloria Shayne the music, in 1962, in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, leading to the king in the song, asking, "Pray for peace, people everywhere."

Ignore for a moment that "Do you hear what I hear?" is from the 2nd verse, thus the title should be "Do You See What I See?" Ignore also, as previously stated, the likelihood (based on Scripture itself) that Jesus was not born in Winter, on December 25 or otherwise.

In the 3rd verse, the shepherd boy says, "In your palace warm, mighty king, do you know what I know? A child, a child shivers in the cold. Let us bring him silver and gold." This is the Christmas song that gets my mother upset: She points out that, if the child is shivering in the cold, forget the precious metals, bring him (and his parents) something more precious: Blankets. One would think that the shepherd boy, himself almost certainly poor, would figure that out.

And how did the boy get into the king's palace, anyway? Not that I want to take the king's side against a poor shepherd boy, but I would like to know. Maybe, like King David started out as, the boy was a crafty little shepherd who found a way around a seemingly impossible situation.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and...

Good Christian Men, Rejoice. The former dates to the 1650s, with the author unknown. The latter is even older, going back to 1328, probably written by a German monk, Heinrich Seuse. Should these songs be gender-neutral? It's hard to do it for the former, unless you (or, should I say, "ye") want to make it, in the song's rhythm, "God rest ye merry gentlefolk" or "God rest ye merry Chris-ti-ans."

As for the latter, some have tried to make it "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice." It's fairer, but it just... doesn't... sound right. A similar effort is occasionally made to change a lyric in the Canadian National Anthem, "O Canada": "True patriot love in all thy sons command" becomes "...in all of us command."

Jewish comedian Allan Sherman turned "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" into "God Rest Ye, Jerry Mandelbaum," a song about a traveling salesman.

Good King Wenceslas. This song was written in 1853, with lyrics by John Mason Neale and music by Thomas Helmore. While the song is certainly telling of genuine Christian behavior on the part of its subject, it has nothing to do with Christmas. In fact, it takes place the next day: December 26, in addition to Boxing Day in the British Commonwealth, is St. Stephen's Day, the anniversary of the death of an early Christian martyr, and thus his "feast day" -- hence, "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen."

There was a real Wenceslas, not quite a king, but Duke of Bohemia, born 907, died 935, assassinated by his brother (and, judging by his nickname, his total opposite), Boleslav the Cruel. And Wenceslas, too, has been declared a Saint, and is the patron saint of Bohemia, which is now in the Czech Republic.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. John Wesley, the founder of what became the United Methodist Church, and his brother, Charles Wesley, were prodigious writers of hymns. John gets most of the remembrance, but Charles is the one who got one of his hymns into the "canon" of Christmas carols, adapting an established melody, and publishing it in 1739. His original melody has been forgotten, with the current one written in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn.

Aside from being the only time most of us ever heard the archaic word "hark," meaning "listen," the only problem with this one is that some notes are really hard to reach. 

I Saw Three Ships. This was first published in 1833, but could be as much as 200 years older. The singer says he saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day in the morning. He asks what was in those ships, and provides the answer: "Our Saviour Christ and His Lady." No, not Mary Magdalene, but Mary, his mother. Then he asks where those ships were sailing, and provides the answer: "O they sailed into Bethlehem."

Yeah, not gonna happen, unless it's another one of Jesus' miracles. The nearest body of water is 20 miles to the east of the modern Church of the Nativity, and it's the salt-filled Dead Sea. The Mediterranean Sea is 46 miles to the west.

Joy to the World. With lyrics written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, and later set to a melody written by George Frederic Handel, there isn't much wrong with this one. But it shares a title with a song that country singer Hoyt Axton wrote, and which the band Three Dog Night took to Number 1 in 1971. Axton has died, but just about everybody from 3DN is still alive. I'd like to hear them sing the carol of the same title, just for the novelty.

The Little Drummer Boy. Katherine Kennicott Davis wrote this in 1941, and is best remembered by the 1958 hit rendition by The Harry Simeone Chorale. "The ox and ass kept time." Sometimes it's sung as, "The ox and lamb kept time," in case you don’t want to use the word "ass" around kids, even to mean "donkey."

You know, call me a relic, call me what you will, say I'm old-fashioned, say I’m over the hill... but the drummer is the one who's supposed to keep time! Why does the little drummer boy need the ox and ass (or lamb) to do it for him? I know, he's just a kid, and he's certainly not responsible for the lyric, he's just telling the story. But this is another dumb one.

O Little Town of Bethlehem. Written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks. "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." Oh, really? Doesn't the Gospel have the angel saying to the shepherds, "Fear not"? Maybe the fears of all the years are dispelled in Bethlehem, but the point (or part of it) was that, with the birth of this child, there was less to fear.

Silent Night. Written for a Christmas pageant in Oberndorf, Austria, outside Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's hometown of Salzburg, in 1818, with lyrics by a priest named Joseph Mohr, and music by his choir director Franz Xaver Gruber.

The entire song suggests that it was quiet and peaceful when Jesus was born. But the Gospels make no mention of whether Mary screamed over labor pains, or whether baby Jesus cried. The Rosary Prayer, the "Hail Mary," states, "Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" -- suggesting that both "yon virgin mother and child" may have been granted holy exemptions to the usual pains each would suffer at birth.

We Three Kings. An American minister named John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote this in 1857. "Star of wonder, star of night." Great phrase, but there are no "stars of day."

Yes, there is such a thing as "the morning star," but that's usually the planet Venus. There are people who believe that the Star of Bethlehem could only have been a "conjunction" of at least two planets (probably Venus and either Mars or Jupiter), looking like one big, very bright star. And, at the time of the birth of Christ, it might not have been known that these planets which looked like stars weren't actually stars. Even a king might not have known that. It's also been suggested that it was a particularly bright comet.

Ah, but the "three kings" were never actually called kings in the Gospels. They were, however, called "wise men" in The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 2. But even their number isn't divulged: It's presumed that there were 3, since there were 3 gifts that they presented: Gold, frankincense and myrrh. One man, one gift? That seems reasonable, but neither the Gospel nor the song specifically says that. They have also been called "magi," which suggests magic, and led to the title of O. Henry's Christmas story, "The Gift of the Magi."

They have often been called scientists, astronomers or astrologers. If they were any of those things, and the Star of Bethlehem was a planetary conjunction, or a comet, then they would have known that. But, as far as modern humanity knows, none of them wrote their observations down. We don't even know their names, although modern retellings of the First Christmas story have assigned them names, which may or may not be historically plausible: Gaspard, provider of gold; Melchior, provider of frankincense; and Balthazar, provider of myrrh.

One of those modern retellings is Amahl and the Night Visitors, the 1st opera ever composed specifically for television, by Gian Carlo Menotti, airing on NBC on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1951. It was the premiere of the series Hallmark Hall of Fame -- and, at just 45 minutes, was the first "Hallmark Christmas Movie." It didn't follow any of the tropes of the modern Hallmark holiday-season romantic comedies, but, by the strictest of definitions, it counts.

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Timeline of Christmas Songs (among those mentioned here)

1328 Good Christian Men, Rejoice

1650 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

1719 Joy to the World

1739 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

1780 The Twelve Days of Christmas

1788 Auld Lang Syne

1818 Silent Night

1833 I Saw Three Ships

1853 Good King Wenceslas

1857 Jingle Bells

1857 We Three Kings

1862 Deck the Halls

1862 Angels We Have Heard On High

1864 Up On the House Top

1868 O, Little Town of Bethlehem

1917 The Bells of St. Mary's

1924 Ding, Dong, Merrily On High

1934 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

1934 Winter Wonderland

1935 We Wish You a Merry Christmas

1937 I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

1941 The Little Drummer Boy

1943 I’ll Be Home for Christmas

1944 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

1945 Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

1946 The Christmas Song

1946 Here Comes Santa Claus

1948 Sleigh Ride

1948 Blue Christmas

1949 Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

1949 A Marshmallow World

1950 Frosty the Snowman

1951 Silver Bells

1951 It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

1952 I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

1953 Santa Baby

1954 (There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays

1957 Jingle Bell Rock

1958 Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

1958 Run, Rudolph, Run

1959 My Favorite Things

1962 Do You Hear What I Hear?

1963 It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

1963 Little Saint Nick

1963 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

1964 A Holly Jolly Christmas

1970 Feliz Navidad

1971 Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

1973 Step Into Christmas

1973 Merry Xmas Everybody

1973 I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

1979 Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer

1979 Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime

1984 Do They Know It's Christmas?

1984 Another Rock and Roll Christmas

1984 Last Christmas

1987 Fairytale of New York

1994 All I Want for Christmas Is You

2000 The Christmas Shoes

2013 Underneath the Tree

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Oh well. Regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, economic status, gender, your partner's gender, politics or even what teams you root for... for discrimination is the biggest humbug of them all...

May your days be merry and bright. Be good, for goodness' sake. God bless us, every one. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Sleep in heavenly peace.