Hi. My name’s Barney Wiloughby, and I’m 8. I wrote this about Christmas carols because this year they all seem different when we sing them.



"It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" talks about how cool it is when the holiday season starts happening.



“Take a look in the five-and-ten, glistening once again ... ”



But the Old Time Five & Dime in Midland isn’t glistening as much. That’s because county people are trying to shut it down for having a business in “a region that was residentially zoned,” according to my Dad.



Me and Ben, as well as Janice and Jen, are staying at Grandma’s with Mom, Dad, Uncle Stewart, and Aunt Karen because our adjustable rate mortgage defaulted, and Dad spent all the refinance money on a Hummer, which we can’t afford gas for. Uncle Stewart got laid off from Home Depot last month and couldn’t pay his rent. On the bright side, this is the first Christmas that Dad and Uncle Stewart have spent together since Aunt Karen and Dad got caught “doing laundry” together. I still don’t understand why doing laundry together is such a big deal.



"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" talks about holiday togetherness and its magical power to make sadness and troubles go away. The best versions are done by Twisted Sister and John Denver and Rolf from The Muppet Show.



“Have yourself a merry little Christmas; Make the Yule-tide gay; From now on, our troubles will be miles away.”



Heh heh. He said, “make the yuletide gay.” This year, Uncle Stewart drove his troubles about a million miles away by drinking all of Grandpa’s old scotch, and then he drove Dad’s Hummer into a Bigfoot Java. Dad said that so far 40 percent of car accidents in Washington state during the holidays have happened in Pierce County. At least three of those involved Uncle Stewart.



The next day, the troubles came back; plus, Uncle Stewart had a “fricking headache.” And now he can’t stop talking about how much he hates his old boss at Home Depot, Karl. I heard Uncle Stewart say that every time you ask Karl for a dime you can hear his butthole slap shut. Gross.



And I guess it is nice to be together and all, but Mom and Aunt Karen keep playing these mean pranks on each other. Aunt Karen put a cat turd in Mom’s purse yesterday. And last night, Mom put bleach in Aunt Karen’s hairspray.



"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is about giving weird gifts for 12 days in a row. Now we only have one day, and we get way more than 12 gifts. People used to like to give people different kinds of birds for Christmas. Aunt Karen said that giving birds as gifts is irresponsible. I asked Uncle Stewart what a partridge was, and he said it was like a fat pigeon. Uncle Stewart calls pigeons “tree rats.”



Usually "It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" is a good one. It talks about all the cool Christmas stuff — “with the kids jingle belling, and everyone yelling ‘Be of good cheer.’”



But then I started thinking about how when we had to get up at four in the morning to go to Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving and how those four people had to go to the hospital because they got trampled. Mom actually stepped on another lady’s head, and Dad got in a fistfight over the last Halo 3. Janice got lost at one point, but Mom said she’d be OK and that we needed to get over to the electronics aisle before all the iPhones were gone. Janice found us later. Then Mom’s debit card was declined, and she threw a hissy fit. Luckily, Dad had his checkbook.



One of my favorites is by that lady. It’s called "Christmas in the Northwest," and it’s about how we have lots of trees and stuff, so it’s OK that it hardly ever snows. “Take away the presents; and they still will have a dream.” That’s the dumb part. Christmas would suck without presents. I heard Mom and Dad talking about taking back some presents last night, “because that check’s gonna bounce.” I hope they don’t take back my Halo 3.