Christmas by the Numbers

Nods to RandomDuck.

1. Favorite Christmas Cartoon: I’ve got to ape Rudi here, in that A Charlie Brown Christmas is the absolute greatest Christmas special ever. Back when kids could be kids without all us adults getting up in their stuff. And the soundtrack’s the bomb.
2. Favorite Christmas Movie: I’ve got to go for It’s a Wonderful Life. In a lot of ways, I identify with George Bailey – having passed on the chance to galavant around the world, all I really want is a house in the burbs, the gal I love, and to make a difference in my community. That, and a youth in which there were opportunities akin to having a drunk, naked, soaking wet girl in a bush at the end of a date.
3. Favorite Christmas Song (Traditional): Man, I love ’em all. The one I keep singing most frequently is “Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do. If you haven’t got a half penny, then God Bless You.” It’s got everything – food, sharing, and good will towards man. I’m always floored when the old iPod turns up Bing Crosby’s “Adeste Fidelas” (O come all ye faithful).
4. Favorite Christmas Song (Pop/Modern): “Blue Christmas”. Elvis rocks.
5. Favorite Christmas Cookie: Yes. Christmas cookies are my favorite this time of year. Though I’ll set aside fondness for my pop’s mom’s macaroons, for Missy’s gingerbread pigs, and for plain old sugar cookies out of the tube.
6. Favorite Family Tradition: The kissing ball, and reading Luke 2 out of a King James bible. (I’ll rant after the break)

Anyway, That’s Christmas here. Mostly, though, we try to avoid the mall.

Mini-rant about Bibles: I’ve been meaning to buy a new bible recently, as the Revised Standard Version I’ve been using isn’t of particularly good quality. And I’m slightly distressed that about all that can be found in the stores are the New International Version (NIV) and the New American Bible (NAB).

Why does this disturb me? ‘Cause they’re written (quite literally) for an elementary school reading level. Which means they lack any sense of majesty or poetry. It’s the difference between “And they were sore afraid” versus “And they were really scared”.

It’s the bible, for crying out loud – it’s supposed to sound like the inspired word of God. God’s omnipotent and omniscient – he knows all the big words.

The argument, and it’s a fine one honestly, is that by making the Bible translations easy-to-read, more people will read the scripture as source-code. Fine. Great. But why does that have to be at the expense of shelf-space for good, solid translations that are written by people for whom the English language is a tool with which to turn an eloquent phrase?