We Need A Little Christmas

For the longest time, I've been adamant that the Christmas season does NOT officially begin until the day after Thanksgiving. Not only was that just the way it worked in my house, but I felt that expanding the season any further would somehow dilute its potency. This year, as the Christmas advertisements and decorations began popping up around Halloween time, I shook my head in disbelief. No matter what, I was going to hold out until the proper date. Christmas demanded it.

This year, though, things are different. To say I've had a rough year would be a ridiculous understatement, and the advent of cold weather and fewer hours of sunlight have come at the worst possible time. I found myself having to gather up all my effort simply to go through the motions, and I was wondering when something, anything, would come along to snap me out of it. Then, last Thursday, as I looked out the windows of my office towards the Empire State Building, I got a sign.

It was November 12th, and the building was lit up with its brand new awesome LED lights in red and green (for the opening of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, which I was unaware of at the time). It was then and there that I decided that my annual immersion into All Things Christmas would begin immediately. Because if there was one thing that would break me out of this funk, it was Christmas. And if I was going to make that happen, I had to get started early.

So here we are, kicking off what is sure to be the best Cavalcade yet with a very appropriate song, "We Need a Little Christmas". The song is from Mame, the 1966 Broadway musical which was based on the 1958 film Auntie Mame, which was based on the 1956 play Auntie Mame, which was based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame. It was originally sung by Ms. Angela Lansbury, who most people will recognize as Jessica Fletcher from TV's Murder She Wrote, but who also has an extensive background in musical theater with lead roles throughout the 60s and 70s in shows like Gypsy, The King and I, and Sweeney Todd. Of course, her musical background will come as no surprise to fans of 1971's Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Mame tells the all-too-relatable story of a bohemian free spirit who tries to live life to the fullest, but is eventually brought down to earth when faced with real world responsibilities and adversities (in Auntie Mame's case, having to adopt her nephew and losing her fortune in the 1929 stock market crash). When the latter happens, however, the titular Auntie puts her philosophy into practice ("Life is a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death") and seeks to obliterate everyone's post-crash bummer with a full scale Christmas assault.

Auntie Mame has come a ways from her days as a carefree bohemian, however, as is evident in this excerpt from the song:

For I've grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older,
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my shoulder,
Need a little Christmas now.

As much as things might suck for Mame and her crew, she's not going to sit around and mope about it. Instead, she decides to power through it with the help of the overwhelming magical power of Christmas. And if a fictional character can do it, so can I! (I've used the same logic when I've needed to fire torpedoes into a space station's exhaust duct, dispose of a magical ring in a volcano, and defeat the Russian national boxing champion.) Merry Christmas everybody - let's do it up right.