The most beautiful of lyrics, the grace of a catchy tune, or the deep meaning of words describing our current condition. Each will wrap up this carol series. And then some. After all, who decides what’s a carol? I’ve included a few not obviously Christmas themed because they add to our spirit and understanding.

You have to surf away for the first, so y’all come back now, mmkay? Here’s Steven Colbert, Elvis Costello, Toby Keith, Willie Nelson and others, setting the mood.

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And it becomes especially important to recognize how many are left out by the festivities, possibly alienated from family and community, possibly suffering from some inner torment.

It is still up to us to reach out, because. It’s the way we continue on the path to civil…

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And how do you reach the lonely, the depressed, the hurting? Kind words rarely do enough. That tactile sense is too often lacking. Are they really untouchable? In this season?

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There’s danger when we let our hearts fall silent.

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Because Christmas, as celebrated in America, is especially about children and our joy at their joy. It’s about gifting each other, which can be both joyous and stressful, but for many, there is no one for that sharing. Perhaps there’s broken ties. Perhaps there’s the charity of strangers. And even in that case, some distance is maintained. For them the greatest gift can be the free one, touching hands, patting backs, giving hugs.

Reminding them that they are a part of us, of the community, of humankind.

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Even the first Christmas reached to the poorest and most distant according to the legends. (In the next video, slide the bar to 1:40, to skip the blather and go to the beauty of that.)

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Trace Bundy carries the beauty forward with his intricate finger works. Touching the strings like we touch each others’ hearts.

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Love, Actually treated us to Olivia Olsen’s version of this song for the romantics. Here, an 8 year old named Syd rivals that stellar performance.

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And how can we escape the spiritual message inherent in the season? Some ignore this, using the holiday itself as a barrier to bludgeon others with, claiming you can’t enjoy the holidays without Christ (and to do so condemns you… how pleasant is that? Is that what your Christ stood for… punishment?)

Dar Williams doesn’t think so and says so in song.

And John Gorka reminds us of the biggest thing we all missed this Christmas.
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And there it is. What kind of Christmas are Iraqis having? You know, those 26 million folks who never attacked us? Or Afghanistanis? Or Pakistanis? Or Yemenis? Places and people we are officially and unofficially at war with. Because a band of a few thousand violent malcontents exist in the world, we fight hundreds of millions who bore us no harm at all.

Because of this, tens of thousands of American troops are also permanently damaged, wounded forever, since we have government leaders who’ve decided this is the best and only way to go.

They have no idea what Christmas is about. Here’s a clue from Brett Dennen.
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And Rustic Overtones asks this President the same Questions they asked the previous one last year.

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Stevie Wonder looks forward to what Christmas should be.

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He first sang that 42 years ago. How sad that makes that beautiful carol today.

So yeah, between the violence, the loneliness and the materialism, it’s understandable why the only carol for some is this Eric Idle ditty. (NOT work-safe)

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It’s also understandable why others turn their thoughts to the heavenly. Eric Idle again, and his compadres provide a version of it that’s just as plausible as any we’ve imagined.

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For me, I try to remember the forgotten, which was part of the initial message.

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And Christmas is about creating and delighting and uniting.

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It’s especially about granting consideration for all others and taking time to demonstrate your concern.

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And indeed, if we are to reach the pinnacles of caroling and celebrating Christmas or Hannukkah or Festivus or Kwanzaa, these are all the things we must remember: reaching and reconciling, touching and loving, creating and considering, forgetting none and celebrating the joys of everyone.

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And I hope your holidays involve all of that including, ultimately, your smile.

Peace, sister & brother.

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Christmas may be over and further celebration may be anticlimactic to some. But I hew to the quaint notion that the spirit that moves us then is worth carrying through to all of our days.

Which isn’t to suggest I plan to regale you with year round carols. It being Christmas weekend still, there’s more to share that I left unsaid in my previous two offerings on December 24th.

Here, I’ll let the focus lean to the humorous and bizarre, before wrapping up the series with the most moving songs I found relevant to these times.

I’ll let Brian Setzer set the mood.

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Riffing on Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, here’s the Cheezy Keys:

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For those of you who’ve had their fill of Alvin & the Chipmunks wanting a hula hoop for Christmas, perhaps you’ll enjoy ‘Chipmunks Roasting On An Open Fire’.
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And can it get more offensive than Mr. Garrison of South Park?

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Sure, we can go lower than that. And cheesier. Here’s Bob Rivers:
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Ray Stevens gets all Big Brotherish as a jealous boyfriend at Christmas.
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Which brings us to the question: what’s Santa Claus really all about? Frosty the Snowman claims to know.

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And a ninja has a different take on the jolly old sleighrider.

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Finally, for this segment, we have to ask: what’s Christmas without Robert Earl Keen’s classic real-family Christmas carol?

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Next: the beauty of song and the strength in lyric, in Part 4, the carol finale.

And there is a Christmas for the old and sentimental.

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And another kind of Christmas for the young.

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There are those who think Christmas is for the sharing.

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There are those who think it’s for romancing.

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Even romance that goes all in. (Caution: not workplace safe)

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There’s the old-fashioned country Christmas.

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There’s the Christmas real ladies like Michelle Bachmann secretly enjoy.

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There’s a Christmas that transcends boundaries of culture and race.

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There’s even a Christmas that transcends time and space.

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Part 3 is still ahead…

We gather to celebrate the birthday of the guy who said:

‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

And today, for this Christmas, 60 millionaire Senators voted to take care of 30 million more sick Jesuses. Starting in 4 or 5 years. Minus the extra couple hundred thousand who’ll die needlessly by then. While visions of Christmas bonuses danced in the bank accounts of AIG and other insurance company executives. Without the delay.

And so begins the carols of Christmas in 2009. Compliments of an agnostic heathen.

From the White House press room, this was sent as a Christmas gift to soothe the base:

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But all the base did not belong to them.

Of course, the Congress critters from the red states were livid. But Christmas 2009 was not theirs. It belonged to the others.

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Afterwards, they adjourned on the counsel of Jethro Tull.

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Meanwhile, hidden in a cave in Montana, former US warlord Dick Cheney was celebrating Christmas in his family’s traditional way (warning: not workplace-safe)

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Alrighty then. The Christmas carols that follow speak to the beautiful, the creative, the smart and the smartass, because, after all, that’s who you are. And unto you today, these gifts are borne. So listen up.

It all began on a quiet night outside of Bethlehem…

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Which, over 20 centuries, evolved into a slightly different emphasis.

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That oversimplifies, of course, as many still seek ways to unify across the great divide…

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(Part 2, to come in a little bit)

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I was quietly feted by my big sister and her dude: roast beast & strawberry shortcake to herald my 56th. And I shared the natal day honors with the brilliant Mr. Beckwith. (Dave, keep on jooglin’).

Now be sure to head over tomorrow to give similar honors to our blog’s longtime fixer, the tech-wise Mr. Dunovant. Earl’s kept us going through the years and brought plenty of think to the issues as well.

Happy birthday!

When last seen, this intrepid reporter was wending his way east, heading to Pilgrim Country as a soon-to-be-elected Lincoln-wannabe was scouring the country in pursuit of a mandate. I was intending to video the salt of the earth in time to boost that Honest Abe effort, but that, too, didn’t quite pan out. Fortunately, the election went as I predicted last winter and the bad economy I’d predicted for 2008 (at Silicon Investor) since 2004 proved a tad badder than even a hopeless idealist like me had bargained for.

So it’s 2009. What now, dear reader?

1) Let’s stop bailing out the rich fucks who bollixed everything up, with toys stolen from our babies. Let’s quit enabling those nimrods claiming the UAW or any union created this financial titanic. It was greedy bankers, almost exclusively, who jiggered the crisis into being and oughta be bailed out with the same lifeline that swung the future of Mussolini.

Detroit? They didn’t cause the crisis. They should swing for a different reason, mostly for decades of lobbying for energy waste and lax safety standards. But that can wait for another day while we try to keep folks in the Rust Belt working.

2) What? Israel’s still trying to maintain its 20-to-1 kill rate to teach its enemies to quit killing Jews? How’s that been working out … for the past 40 years? Not exactly a convincing rate of effectiveness. Can any elementary school teacher come up with a new lesson plan? Killing a lot of innocents ‘inadvertently’ can no longer be said without a nudge-nudge-wink-wink, so maybe it’s time to rethink Israel’s Behavior Mod, which is only cruel and useless.

3) Barack channels Abe while liberal optimists hope Michelle can channel Eleanor. But the best shows on Broadway have always been fresh originals. Can the Man from Oahu bring us more paradise than poi? I’m firmly unconvinced.

Of course, compared to the last stage show, simply showing up will demonstrate competence. But competence can’t suffice in a time that begs for miracles.

4) Yes, American Street will go on. It’s just been hellacious trying to participate in a succession of living environments not conducive to online access.

That will be resolved this month, as I’m going to have to head to the warmer climes of Florida. I’ll likely head to the north Midwest come Spring. That’s the trouble with this Second Not-So-Great Depression: it makes the rules, not us.

But that means I should be blogging regular again after the Bush regime is officially over. It means I’ll still be using the video shot from pre-election travel, only it’ll get tied to fresh narratives of working folks (and retirees remembering the first Depression) before they emerge online. (I got online so rarely in December, I didn’t even get out proper holiday greetings to so many friends. Belated holiday wishes to you all. But don’t feel alone; it’s the first year ever I didn’t send a single Christmas card to anyone. It was THAT sucky a year.)

Though our blog was spawned by and inextricably linked to the Iraq War, the blogosphere is full of many that cover the political scene very well. So I hope, in the tradition of chroniclers like Howard Zinn and Studs Terkel and Dorothea Lange, to put our principal effort into recording the actual American streets. After all, it’s the people who make up the most of history and the mainstream press gives them too little space.

Sure, we’ll still cover politics and media critique and share plenty snark. But I expect you’ll see the overriding theme arise throughout 2009, because it’s going to get worse, probably into 2010. Folks will need to tell their stories, share tips about thrift and inexpensive recipes and more, to get through the worst of it. That’s the developing street and we plan to cover it. Because that’s what we do. We remain a multitude of voices of the American Street. Even when it leads to Hooverville.

So happy New Year to everyone! I hope your fortunes remain better than the 12% to 15% who’ll be visible on America’s streets this year.

And in 2009, it’ll be doubly important to utilize great sources of comic relief to keep hope thriving. JC Duffy will be a reliable source of that.