BEFORE: I found time on the night of Thanksgiving to assemble my annual Christmas mix CD. This tradition started about two decades ago, when I put some of my favorite classic Xmas songs (Elvis Presley, Leon Redbone and Bing Crosby were probably mainstays then) on to a 90-minute cassette (yeah...) and gave it to probably about 10 people. Reactions were good, so I did it again, and bought more Christmas music CDs the next year, and more the year after that, and it was feeding my typical obsession to collect things AND organize them, but it also started to serve as an all-purpose Christmas gift for family, friends, co-workers and even the UPS guy and the postal clerks. People ask me if I'm going to run out of songs, and I've determined that's mathematically impossible, I could probably continue this process for the rest of my natural lifespan and never run out of versions of "Silent Night" (plus, if I pull songs from the CDs once a year, then technically I can't be called a "hoarder").
But as with everything I do, there needs to be a process. There is a certain art, science and logic to creating a Christmas mix, plus I need to feel inspired. I don't allow the process to guide me, even though the process could be more or less on auto-pilot at this point - just pick a bunch of good songs, make sure no two artists are singing the same song, the length is just under the 80-minute CD limit, and hit "Burn CD", right? Not so fast. I simply must have a theme, and that theme could be 80's rock, or jazz, or a cappella, or even Christmas music in the style of famous classic rock songs (one of my more difficult mixes to put together). This year I had a rough idea for a theme, and it just wasn't coming together as fast as I would have liked, but I realized the clock was ticking. So I sat down to log in the CDs I bought last year, and I realized I had put a bunch of post-it notes on the CDs, marking songs that I thought would fit in with a theme I've used before - and when I put this together with the songs that didn't make the cut in a previous year, for one reason or another, within a couple of hours I had a mix that was just a few minutes over the legal limit.
This is the best place for a mix of songs to be in - I know I need to cut just one song, and I'm golden. But which one? Well, when I pick songs I'm usually drawn to songs that show creativity or are different in some way - I'm most impressed by new arrangements, or singers that change the melody up a little, or stand out in some perhaps undefinable way. Some versions that aren't just "the same old thing". Then I'll listen to the mix, and choose the one that perhaps went a little too far (this year it was a very angry-ish version of "Carol of the Bells") and then what's left is usually the final group of songs.
Then it's just a matter of putting them in the "right" order, which is important. I try to include 6 or 7 traditional Nativity-oriented carols, so that's a section, but I don't want so many that the mix gets bogged down in religious dogma. Then there's usually a group of the weather- or party-related songs, like "Winter Wonderland", "Let It Snow", "White Christmas", and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". Any songs related to Santa / Rudolph / Frosty the Snowman usually constitute a third section, and then there are usually a few songs that are relationship-based, like "Blue Christmas", "Last Christmas" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". Then there are generic well-wishing songs like "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", and other songs that I can take or leave, like "Feliz Navidad" and "12 Days of Christmas" - it has to be a really great version of one of those songs for me to even consider using it. Plus I like to throw in one or two original songs, just to keep things fresh and maybe move the genre forward a bit. Sometimes I like to challenge people's perceptions of what a holiday song sounds like, but I don't want to go too far.
Then, after a rough order is established, I have to listen through it one more time. At this point I ask myself a number of questions, such as "Do I have too many female artists in a row?" "Are the songs that mention God or Jesus too preachy?" "Do I really want to alternate like this, fast song then slow song then fast song, or does that seem to bi-polar?" "What's the overall tone of the compilation?" Too many slow songs or songs in minor keys can potentially drag the whole thing down, and make it sound like a funeral dirge for Prancer & Vixen. But too many loud or fast numbers could alienate the older relatives. Usually cutting out the most egregious offenders in Step 2 takes care of this, and the rest can be smoothed over by just not putting too many downbeat songs together.
I've got something now that I think is entertaining and even better, interesting. And by that I mean it's got MY interest right now, and it represents where my head is at, and that's what I want to share with people. There are a couple sad songs, perhaps "wistful" is a better word, and that's OK. The mix made me sort of tear up in two spots, and that's a good sign. But I don't want to depress people, so the cheer comes back to (hopefully) pull people back to a celebratory mood, and I think after a few more listens I'll be ready to mail it out with my Christmas cards. An even better sign is the fact that right after listening through it, I want to hear it again.
But that's not why you called - so on with the countdown. Linking from "The Patriot", an actor from that film named Peter Woodward was also in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" with Diane Kruger (last seen in "Troy").
THE PLOT: On Christmas Eve during world War I, the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "War Horse" (Movie #1,585), "Paths of Glory" (Movie #1,180)
AFTER: Well, this goes right along with what I was just talking about. Music is the initial thing that draws the French and German soldiers together on Christmas Eve. Music, then alcohol. Both are sort of universal languages (along with food, I suppose) and to a lesser extent here, religion. The soldiers from France, Germany and Scotland end up having a mass together, which was easier back then because all of their masses were spoken in Latin.
But let's start with music. "Stille Nacht", or as you may know it, "Silent Night", was composed in German and just plain sounds better sung in that language (as does "O Tannenbaum"), but of course it's also recognizable in other languages. "O Come All Ye Faithful" is shown here as a crossover too (sung as "Adeste Fideles", again, Latin). I'm sure there are other Christmas songs that are uniquely German, or French, or English, but some of these are just plain universal. I'm spoiled by the fact that 99% of my Christmas CD's recipients live in English-speaking countries, so I can worry about the theme and the tone and not worry if the messages are being understood or not.
Speaking of messages, it's a little tough to land on just exactly what the message of this film is. It's clearly anti-war, but it was a little hard to get much clearer than that. Obviously it's much harder to shoot your enemy once you've shared a drink with him, and it shows that people on both sides of World War I were "dehumanizing" their enemy in order to make war acceptable in the minds of their countrymen. It also highlights the difference in attitudes held by the people in government, and those held by the people in the trenches.
But it's tough to say whether this was meant to be seen as a sane moment in an insane war, or perhaps a more insane moment. Putting Christmas aside, what happened still constituted fraternization with the enemy, and it was perhaps naive to think that their superior officers would never find out, or that there would be no repercussions. The goals of war are to stay alive and kill the other guy, and however you feel about Christmas, celebrating it ended up interfering with the aforementioned other goals. Besides, if celebrating with the enemy gets your unit disbanded or gets you transferred to the more dangerous Russian Front, then in the end it hardly seems worth it.
This is the end of the war chain, which began with "Red Tails" back on November 7. Actually, it sort of began with "Gone With the Wind" in late September, or really you could say it kind of started with "Les Miserables" back on Jan. 1. Whatever. Now that peace has broken out, I need to step away and get my Christmas CDs made, my Christmas cards mailed out, the outdoor lights put up, and then I really should think about buying some gifts for people. Damn, I've got just three weeks until Christmas, so this is going to be tight, and it's my own damn fault. I'll meet you back here in about two weeks, hopefully, to knock off the last few films of the year, which are mainly holiday-based.
Also starring Benno Fürmann, Gary Lewis, Daniel Brühl, Steven Robertson, Guillaume Canet, Frank Witter, Ian Richardson, Thomas Schmauser.
RATING: 6 out of 10 bagpipes
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