Tom Lehrer
Текст песни A Christmas Carol

One very familiar type of song is the Christmas carol. Although
it is perhaps a bit out of season at this time. However, I'm
informed by my "disk jockey" friends - of whom I have none, that
in order to get a song popular by Christmas time, you have to
start plugging it well in advance. So here goes. It has always
seemed to me after all. That Christmas, with its spirit of giving,
offers us all a wonderful opportunity each year to reflect on
what we all most sincerely and deeply believe in.

I refer of course, to money. And yet none of the Christmas carols
that you hear on the radio or in the street, even attempt to
capture the true spirit of Christmas as we celebrate it in the
United States. That is to say the commercial spirit. So I should
like to offer the following Christmas carol for next year, as
being perhaps a bit more appropriate.

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when."
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
"Just the thing I need! How nice!"
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.

Hark the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest ye merry, merchants,
May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.
Actually I did rather well myself, this last Christmas. The nicest
present I received was a gift certificate "good at any hospital
for a lobotomy". Rather thoughtful.