Do You Hear What I Hear?

Back home the flag may drop the day after Thanksgiving, but here in Taiwan my Christmas season began last week.

Christmas is important, not because there are so many Christians in Taiwan, though there are plenty. Christmas is a choice time for bushibans, mine included, to show parents all the beautiful English their children are learning. There will be a few carols, some recitation - pretty much it's a huge marketing event to attract and retain students. That's why we've already started preparing.

There's a scene in A Christmas Story. The family goes to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day, and the waiters sing "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly, fa ra ra ra raaaaaah." That's my classroom. Every day. For the next month and a half.

Today I got on YouTube looking for carols to teach one of my classes. It was surprisingly hard to find good versions kids could sing along with. Bruce Springsteen and Charlotte Church renditions wont cut it for the ten-year-old set.

I did find a version of The First Noel on YouTube with a Sims video-captured nativity sequence. Who does that?

I was searching for a version of "Do You Hear What I Hear," one of my favorites
when I found the real gem, this Christmas atrocity:

The hair! The stellar background! That green body suit! I felt a little bad about savaging this video after I read the information. Supposedly Richard Carpenter made it after his sister's death. So she wasn't around to defend herself, poor thing. But it was too amazing not to share.