Christmas pet peeve of the day: “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music is not a Christmas song, no matter how many Kenny G/Kenny Rogers/Kenny Loggins/anyone-named-Kenny Christmas albums it appears on. Yes, I’ll grant you the mittens and the snowflakes and the brown paper packages tied up with string. (Brown paper would make for a pretty austere Christmas, yes, but the economy is in the crapper after all.)

But you’re cherry-picking! What about the geese? What about the raindrops? What, for the love of Christopher Plummer, about silver-white winters melting into spring?

And don’t even bring up the sleigh bells, unless you are willing to throw in the (not-very-Christmassy) doorbells. And schnitzel with noodles. Ho ho ho!

Right now I can hear Dylan and his grandpa playing some party game in the other room. Grandpa says, “Okay, this is a singer.” Dylan guesses, “William Shatner!” to the bewilderment of all. This is all my fault, since we were watching this on YouTube last night. Dylan disapproves. “Captain Kirk shouldn’t be smoking even if he’s not on board a starship.”