The best I can tell, we started doing these in 2016. The idea behind it was that for Teelin, Christmas had started to suck. I thought doing these would might help brighten the season.
And it worked for at least one night out of the year. We got to hit record on the camera and act as weird as wanted. That was as appealing to a sixty year old as it was to a fifteen year old.
I have a deep reverence for Christmas. I’ve spent a lot of time studying it, writing about it and I still long for the Christmas feeling I used to get.
These videos aren’t that.
Being a single person for most of my life, Christmas often meant celebrations, even if you were alone. Those seldom reached the level of bacchanalias, but we did have aspirations, once upon a time.
The last time I saw real aspirations at a Christmas celebration was when I talked my boss into dropping acid at the company Christmas party. Then sat back and merrily watched as he tried to keep it a secret from everyone there, and hadn’t done it for twenty or more years. He failed in that, but his wife loved him all the more as he tearfully confessed.
I miss you Pat.
And that’s what you do at Christmas, at least part of the time. Miss those who aren’t there any more. It makes those who are even more precious.
That’s a long way of trying to explain why there’s a lot of alcohol in these videos. Mostly that kind of thing was in the past for me, though I find that hard liquor does make creating these videos seem like a normal thing to do at the time.
It’s the season we celebrate, perhaps too much.
The last video was last year. There was no Teelin, the last one with him was the year before that. He found love and that makes a young person scarce.
This year there are no new videos. There are no eggs in last year’s nest.
So it seemed like a good time to string them all together and see what the last five years looked like in the rear view mirror. And hopefully, to bring a few smiles, mainly to person who always drove us to keep the tradition alive.
And hopefully raise a few bucks to help with his treatments. So perhaps next year, Todd Lane’s dulcet tones will once more be warbling out the Christmas message, for all those who need to hear it.
Noel and all that rot …