Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “The 12 Pains of Christmas” — Bob Rivers (1987)

(You know, we lost the late great Bob Rivers to cancer last March. Between this song and the eternal holiday classic “Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear”, our culture owes him a real debt of gratitude. It is with love, thanks, and seasonal exhaustion that I devote this morning’s post. The dude was a legend.)

We basically get two kinds of Christmas songs:
1. The ones that insist everything is perfect
2. And the ones that know better

So much better.

Because, oy! Peace and love and all is calm is beautiful, and spiritual, and adorable. And festive and light and all that mishegas.

But The 12 Pains of Christmas? That song ain’t asking you to believe. It wants you to cope, man.

Honestly I don’t think Bob Rivers wrote a parody song here. It’s more like a stress test. One with a familiar cadence and melody, and featuring twelve increasingly unwell human beings who are rapidly running out of patience.

But he real genius on display isn’t in the jokes; it’s the voices. The 12 Pains of Christmas is essentially a holiday variety show where every character is about ten seconds from snapping in the most joyously hilarious ways imaginable.

Let’s examine the host of suspects, shall we?

We start with a nice Christmas chorus cheerfully hunting for a tree. Innocent. Hopeful. They still believe.

This will not last.

Then angry dad shows up wrestling Christmas lights like they personally affronted him. Which they did. You can hear the ladder wobbling.

Then the Jewish grandpa with a hangover saunters in sounding like he just wants everyone to calm down and maybe stop singing for five minutes. Or possibly forever.

Coming up next, the uproariously flaming gay dude arrives, buried under Christmas cards and social obligations and manic performance energy. You can literally hear the exact moment he realizes he has overcommitted to December.

The chorus comes back for five months of bills and suddenly the smiles are gone. Same people. Same melody. Different reality.

Moving along, we have to feel for the panicked wife dreading the in-laws. She enters the scene with pure anxiety in her voice. Because she’s done this before. She knows what is coming.

Then the Yonkers guy is annoyed at the Salvation Army bell and honestly can you blame him? (Google it.)

The bratty kid demanding Transformers toys hits like a shriek to the nervous system. A walking, talking advertisement for birth control.

The exhausted guy out shopping for bags of crap for his family? He can’t find a parking space. At this point you feel spiritually aligned with him.

The batteries-not-included woman experiences the death of joy in real time. Next time get one that’s waterproof and USB-rechargeable.

Wait, what?

The operatic guy is dramatically sick to death of stale, overplayed TV specials and delivers it like Shakespeare losing his mind at the mall. Which is imagery I can’t get enough of.

And finally a full choir of dudes is so over Christmas carols they sound like they are ready to fight Frosty in the parking lot.

To quote the great Small Faces, it’s all too beautiful.

And the longer the song goes the worse everyone gets. The delivery frays. The timing loosens. The lyrics mutate. Frustration replaces rhythm.

This is not accidental. This is realism.

The 12 Pains of Christmas understands that Christmas does not build to a spiritual crescendo. It’s a twelve-car Cybertruck pile-up on an icy interstate. I live to see such wonders.

But honestly, that’s why this song lasts. It doesn’t mock Christmas. It survives Christmas. Loudly, collectively, and massively unhinged.

That’s why we here at the Park love The 12 Pains of Christmas. Because that’s our connection, brothers and sisters. Where we look at each other with empathy and shared damage, and think “Oh good. It is not just me. Thank Christ.”

And thank you, Bob Rivers.

Second verse
Same as the first…