RIYADH, Saudi Arabia. In this, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, expatriate Christians must practice their religion underground in order to avoid deportation. “I try to keep the flame alive,” says Michael Cox, a construction engineer from Lenexa, Kansas, as he listens to “Frosty the Snowman” through headphones in order to escape detection.
Riyadh: Alcohol is banned, and this giant bottle-opener serves as a warning.
In the weeks leading up to the highest holy day of the Christian religion the strains of Christmas music that Cox tries to hide become audible as thousands of westerners listen to familiar carols as they go about their business. Many militant groups, al Qaeda among them, say it is time for a crackdown.
Irving Berlin: Funny, you don’t look Christmassy.
“It is well-known that Christmas is a plot by the Zionist merchants, and Christmas music, with the possible exception of Bing Crosby, is the product of a vast Jewish conspiracy,” says one tape attributed to a radical Muslim cleric that is currently number five with a bullet on the Billboard Easy Listening Chart. “‘White Christmas’–the most popular Christmas song of all time–was written by Irving Berlin, a Jew!”
“. . . and don’t get me started about ‘Frosty the Snowman!’”
Americans who work for multinational corporations often try to conceal their fondness for Christmas carols by reworking the lyrics to fit in better with local culture. “We sing about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Camel, and nobody knows our little secret,” say Pamela Gooding, a bookkeeper for an American telecommunications company.
“. . . had a very shiny nose.”
But subterfuge isn’t adequate for those who, like Lisa Paul, a reservations specialist for a U.S. airline that flies into Riyadh International Airport, have a special Judeo-Christian singer they are fond of. “I’m a huge Barry Manilow fan,” she says of the Russian-Jewish entertainer whose “Carol of the Bells/The Bells of Christmas” was recently voted the number one Jewish Christmas song in the country in a joint poll taken by My Little Messenger, a free newspaper distributed in Catholic schools, and the Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish weekly published in New York.
Manilow: “What? What did I sing?”
In the west, incessant Christmas music played in department stores has been known to trigger depression and other ailments among retail sales clerks. “My hair started to fall out in clumps,” says Mary Louise Turner, who took a position at the perfume counter of Macy’s in New York in 2017. “I applied for worker’s comp, but they turned me down because they said I could still work in the men’s department.”
Bob Dylan and chameleon: The green one has a better voice.
Chameleonic folk singer Bob Dylan, ne Robert Allen Zimmerman, complicated matters in 2009 by releasing a Christmas album, lending support to the claims of a conspiracy. “Jewish mother jokes are bad enough,” says Adil Zakaria, entertainment reporter for Al Jazeera, “now we have a Jewish chameleon.”
Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Oh . . . My . . . God.”
Well. That explains everything.