TORONTO ¨C While trying to work at a cafe the other day, I experienced the real war on Christmas. Hoping for the familiar hum of conversation and music, I was surprised upon entering that no one was talking. Still, I sat down with my notebook and attempted to focus my thoughts, but something was playing havoc with my concentration. The music seemed eerie. I lifted my head, listened and became disturbed.
What seemed at first to be a playlist of winter classics and Christmas carols offered something else entirely. The melodies were more or less the same ¡ªrecognizable as ¡°Silent Night,¡± ¡°The First Noel¡± and ¡°Winter Wonderland.¡± But the voice was generically earnest, a bland baritone straining, I felt, from nowhere to nowhere.
Worse, the lyrics were wrong. Not a mistake here or there, but a pattern of errors. References to the nativity were expunged, replaced with metaphysical blather. And the human parts had gone missing as well. In the love song ¡°Winter Wonderland,¡± we should hear this nice couplet about a pair taking a walk:
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