Thanksgiving maskers

Before Halloween came into its own as a holiday in this country, there was “Thanksgiving masking,” where kids would dress up and go door to door for apples, or maybe “scramble for pennies.” 

As William Dean Howells put it, "The poor recognize [Thanksgiving] as a sort of carnival," a masculine escape from the family, a day of rule breaking, and spontaneous mirth. Thanksgiving had its own set of rowdies, akin to those at Christmas. Drunken men and boys, often masked, paraded from house to house and demanded to be treated. Boys misbehaved and men committed physical assaults on Thanksgiving as well as on Christmas.

Groups of men, crossdressing, who called themselves the Fantastics or Fantasticals, masqueraded on Thanksgiving beginning in the 1780s. The name Fantastic was English and the practice seems to have been derived from English door to door masquerading for treats. Subsequently the Fantastics copied these and other elements of English mumming, such as drunkenness and ridiculing authority. At the end of the Revolutionary war veterans were dressing up in the rags of the Continental soldiers. The Fantastics paraded in rural and urban areas of eastern and central Pennsylvania, and New York City on Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve and Day, Battalion Day, Washington's Birthday, and the Fourth of July.

The Fantastics disappeared by the 1910s, although the masquerade and carnival cropped up in different incarnations. Misrule at Thanksgiving also appeared in October. Halloween, rather than Thanksgiving, became the holiday for wearing costumes. Children, sometimes dressed in rags or wearing masks, had always followed the Fantastics on Thanksgiving Day, blowing horns and begging. Calling their ritual the Ragamuffin parade, children continued to beg on Thanksgiving. Although some of the child beggars were poor, more privileged ragamuffins in costume demanded coins or treats in New York City or up state New York as late as the 1940s.

Progressive era reformers regarded child begging on Thanksgiving as immoral and thought children who engaged in it should be arrested. The New York Times in November of 1930 worried that demanding coins could teach children to become professional beggars and blackmailers and that children were annoying the public. Begging, decided the paper, was a "malicious influence on the morals of children of the city. Boys' clubs and other child welfare agencies organized parades and costume contests as alternative activities. As a result of these efforts, child begging or masking on Thanksgiving finally disappeared by the 1940s.

Happy Thanksgiving !!

Original White House Crasher

Original White House Crasher

It was almost exactly 29 years ago that the first original White House crasher showed up wanting to meet the president. December 21, 1970. Egil "Bud" Krogh was a White House Deputy for Domestic Affairs from 1970 to 1972 and he received a call from a guy saying "The King is here". He looked over the Presidents schedule and found that no King was to scheduled that day and his friend on the phone said "No, not just any King the King of Rock and Roll- Elvis, he's in Washington and wants to meet the president". A letter was sent over explaining what his thoughts....

Elvis Presley, dressed in a purple jumpsuit and a white shirt open to the navel with a big gold chain and thick-rimmed sunglasses walked down the hall of the white house with two body guards and talked to Bud about how much he felt for his country, how he had served in the military and felt obligated to help out the country because of all it had given to him..
Bud thought that the guy was saying all the right things that Nixon would like to hear so he wrote a memo to the president with a few suggestions of things to talk about. Then Dwight Chapin wrote a memo to Chief of Staff Bob Halderman, to get an approval for the meeting and soon it was approved.
Elvis shows up at 12 noon. Soon after the Secret Service calls saying that there was a problem - Elvis Presley had brought a gun to give the president.

It was explained that there are no guns in the Oval Office and that was just standard policy. Elvis understood and the present was given to one of the presidents handlers.
Around 12:30 Elvis was led into the Oval Office and they began having a weird discussion about many things that had nothing to do youth and drugs in America. Elvis began telling the president how difficult it was to play in Las Vegas. The president said, 'I understand, Las Vegas is a tough town'. And then Elvis said, 'And you know, the Beatles came over here and made a lot of money and said some un-American things'.
The president looks around like, 'What's all this about the Beatles?'
Then it's clear to everyone in the room why Elvis was really there....he began with..'Mr. President, can you get me a badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs?' And the president looks at Bud and says 'Bud, can we get him a badge?' And Bud said, 'Well, Mr. President, if you want to get him a badge, we can do that'. He said, 'Well, get him a badge'.

Well, Elvis was so happy about this, he steps around the side of the desk and he goes over and he grabs him. And then Elvis asked if he could bring in his bodyguards, to which the president said, 'Bud, do we have time for that?' Bud thought, 'You're this far into it, why not finish it off'. So, he said, 'Yes, sir, you've got a few more minutes'.
So Elvis bodyguards came in and, the president shook hands with them and told Elvis, 'You've got some big ones here, Elvis'. And he said, 'Yes', and the president went behind his desk, and opened up the bottom drawer to give them each a gift. Elvis sensing that there was a lot of stuff in that drawer went behind the desk and, as the president is taking out the cufflinks and the paperweights and the golf balls, Elvis is reaching in towards the back of the drawer and taking out the real gold stuff, the valuable presents--because they were sort of lined up in order of expense, or cost. The higher the roller, the more expensive the present.

Elvis starts taking all these things out, and he says, 'Mr. President, they have wives'. (this was 4 days before Christmas) And so he dived back into the drawer again and out come the presents for the wives. And they walked out of there - with their hands filled with all of these presidential goodies.
Elvis, was given a badge and its believed he carried it with him for many years and it's on display at Graceland. If you visit there you can tell it was well worn around the edges. While it carried no authority with it - clearly it meant something to The King.
If you want to read more on this topic buy The Day Elvis Met Nixon Book by: Egil "Bud" Krogh

I remember reading this in Entertainment Weekly back in 2007 and it's stayed with me ever since...
and everytime I hear the song I listen to the lyrics to see if the origional lyrics creep in....but they 
never do.
The song in question is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". The only Christmas song (I know of) that is melancholy with only a  little hope splashed in there for good measure.

Hugh Martin, 95 from Birmingham, Alabama wrote the song along with The Trolly Song and The Boy Next Door from Meet Me In St. Louis.

Meet Me in St. Louis

In 1943, the  musical Meet Me in St. Louis, would pair Judy Garland with her future husband, director Vincente Minnelli. Martin would end up writting a song ''Merry Little Christmas,'' for the now-famous scene in which Garland and her little sister, Margaret O'Brien. The two are are upset over the prospect of moving away from their home, while keeping with the scene from the movie - what he wrote was really depressing.  
YOu already know the melody,...now plug in the real lyrics to this Christmas classic...
''Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last.... Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more.'' 

Margaret O'Brien told Entertainment weekly in 2007 ''I often wondered what would it have been like if those lyrics had been sung in the movie,'' laughs O'Brien, now 72. ''But about a week before we were to shoot the scene where Judy sings it to me, she looked at the lyrics and said, 'Don't you think these are awfully dark? I'm going to go to Hugh Martin and see if he can lighten it up a little.''' 

Martin talking about the lyrics, he initially didn't want to change them. ''They said, 'It's so dreadfully sad.' I said, 'I thought the girls were supposed to be sad in that scene.' They said, 'Well, not that sad.' And Judy was saying, 'If I sing that to that sweet little Margaret O'Brien, they'll think I'm a monster!' And she was quite right, but it took me a long time to get over my pride. Finally, Tom Drake [the young male lead], who was a friend, convinced me. He said, 'You stupid son of a b----! You're gonna foul up your life if you don't write another verse of that song!''' 

Martin finally gave in, coming up with a new, somewhat less downbeat lyric. As sung in the movie, ''Merry Little Christmas'' is a buck-up ballad that imagines the possibility of a bright future but finally admits, in the song's most powerful line, that ''until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow.'' 

Liza Minnelli (Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland's daughter) remembers a few more details of the story back then. Liza told Entertainment Weekly that her father told Martin, '''Nooo, this won't do. Look, the movie is about hope and dreams, and there's gotta be some hope in the song.' My feeling is that Christmastime is about your past, and there comes a time when it does become sentimental, just because you start remembering, and people will always miss somebody at Christmas. But to indulge in that and just say 'Everything was better then' — forget it! You've always gotta have hope.'' 

Meet Me in St. Louis was a huge hit, and brought the 1942 audience one of their all-time favorite songs and a Best Song Oscar nomination for "The Trolly Song". That's right,...Christmas pop music wasn't very popular
at the time and "Merry Little Christmas" song went unnoticed.

 In 1947 Frank Sinatra sang a version of the song and it stayed with him. So in 1957 Sinatra went to Martin and as Martin remembers it  ''He called to ask if I would rewrite the 'muddle through somehow' line,'' ''He said, 'The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?''' 
Not about to tell Sinatra no, Martin made several cheerier alterations, shifting the happiness into the present tense and changing that ''muddle through'' line to ''Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.''

Leave it to Sinatra to turn the song into a Christmas perennial hit. With the newer version the song and became a favorite off of Sinatras Christmas album.''It's been a little confusing,'' says Martin, ''because half the people sing one line and half sing the other.'' It's probably more off-balance than that. Sample a good portion of the 500-plus recordings that are up on iTunes, and most use the Sinatra lyrics. Even Garland herself eventually did. ''But I still kind of like 'muddle through somehow,' myself,'' Martin admits. ''It's just so kind of...down-to-earth.'' 

The Pretenders lead singer Chrissir Hynde said ''I'm surprised that our version is very popular at all,'' For the charity album A Very Special Christmas in 1989 the Pretenders recorded the song and as Hynde puts it
''I was in a particularly melancholy mood, so I don't think ours is a cheerful version. Singing it upset me; I was on the verge of tears. I was thinking about relationships, and how things had changed, and the people that I couldn't see and couldn't be with. But maybe that [sadness] is what most people feel at Christmas, and maybe that's why people relate to it.'' 

Recently, more and more singers have been opting for the darker words. James Taylor, for one, was inspired to go back to the song's bittersweet roots after 9/11. He recorded ''Merry Little Christmas'' in fall 2001 and released it to radio soon after it was included on his James Taylor at Christmas album. ''It's as though people were suddenly experiencing everything on a deeper level for a while,'' says the singer, who was intrigued to learn that the song was penned during WWII. Though Martin has said he wasn't consciously writing about wartime separations, Taylor ''would be very surprised if he wasn't somehow influenced by the mood of missing people over the holidays and hoping like hell that they would be home next Christmas, if not this one.'' In times of strife, ''we 'muddle through,' as the lyric says. As the best lyric says.'' 

Not everyone feels that way, though. '''Muddle through' is what we do,'' agrees Linda Ronstadt, ''but I love the bravado of 'hanging the shining star,' because it gets past the layers of anxiety to find that little beacon of hope and bravery.'' In her recording, she neatly solves the problem by singing both versions of the key line. ________________________________________

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

ORIGINAL VERSION

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Pop that champagne cork
Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

JUDY GARLAND VERSION

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

FRANK SINATRA VERSION

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
From now on, our troubles will be miles away
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now