Holiday Twitches

Yesterday my friend and I were discussing our taste in Christmas songs. We confided in one another which songs we love and which songs we really don't like.

There is a song I really don't like. I won't tell you what it is for fear that it is too scandalous. I know a lot of people for whom the song is very meaningful, so I'll try to not taint it for anyone, but just know that from the first time I heard it, I didn't like it, and when it comes on the radio, it gives me the twitches.

There is another song that I am going to taint for you, though, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." It gives me great anxiety.

Let me explain. I've needed to get this off my chest for years.

It's the lyrics.

Here's how I learned it:

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

Good tidings we bring
To you and your kin
Good tidings for Christmas
And a Happy New Year

And yet, I hear it sung this way most of the time:

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

Good tidings we bring
To you and your kin
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year!

So whenever I hear the song, I have to deal with the awful anticipation of which way the song will go. And even worse, when I have to sing the song, I skip the last lines because I panic.

In my mind, of course, the version I learned is "correct," and the more commonly rehearsed version, which I call the "redundant version," is incorrect. So for me, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," is frequently sung wrong, and therefore, gives me the twitches, and since I hear it no less than 6 billion times each season, I twitch pretty consistently for the entire month of December.

Unfortunately, the song is so old that the correct lyrics can't be verified. No one knows who wrote it or what the original lyrics are.

On top of that, there are more than just those two versions of the lyrics. Some people sing "I wish you a Merry Christmas," and some people sing "Glad tidings to you" instead of "Good tidings." Which means that if we all get together and sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," we will first need to take a vote on whether we sing the "correct" lyrics or the "redundant lyrics," and then we'll need to discuss whether tidings should be "good" or "glad." (Luckily, I think most of us will agree that we will sing "we" and not "I" - I'm going to be optimistic there).

Can you see how stressful this is?