The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXXIII

Prepare yourself, comrades, for a Luftwaffe-level assault on the Holiday senses. . . . .

Album Title:  Holiday Sing Along with Mitch

Album Artist:  Mitch Miller

Sweet Baby Jesus.  This one's weird, folks.

Such versatility. . .

Mitch Miller made a name for himself with an early '60s TV series called Sing Along with Mitch, that featured this dude and a male chorus (choir?) singing traditional, folk, and pop songs, while lyrics flashed along the bottom of the screen with one of those bouncing balls over each word as it was sung.  Due to the show's popularity - yes, it was popular with viewers -  they released a whole slew of records for people to sing along with.  Pop records, country records, showtunes records, and, like we have here, Christmas records.

Look at all these wonderful. . . lyric sheets.

The fact that someone could make so much money on something as stupid as singing along with music - something we all do anyway with regular, non-karaoke records - really says a lot about the early 1960s and how starved they were for entertainment.  The packaging on this album is interesting, for sure.  There's a still-intact lyric sheet with tear-out pages for each song, so folks could - I assume - rip out the page for the song they were listening to if. . . they didn't feel like holding. . . the entire album cover. . . .?  I guess?  I don't get it.

Anyway, so what does this slicked up production sound like?  Well, have you guys ever seen that meme online that says that when men reach their middle ages they have to either get really into smoking/grilling meats or really into World War II?  It totally makes sense to me, and Yours Truly is definitely guilty of the latter.  This evening I was actually watching the Stalingrad episode of WWII in Color (or something like that - it's really, really good) on Netflix shortly before retiring to the Study to put this album on my turntable.  Upon dropping the needle down, I immediately experienced flashbacks to what I had just been watching.

The first handful of songs on Side 1 are marches, sung by a boisterous male choir (chorus?), seemingly recorded in a large, barren room (the reverb and distance in their voices clearly give this away.)  And maybe it was the fact that I had just been watching German soldiers marching victorious through the burning fields of the Soviet Union in 1942, but listening to these first few songs it was impossible to not imagine a smoky beer hall filled with celebrating Nazi infantrymen.

Why are Nazis singing Christmas carols?  Why are they singing in English?  Who the hell is playing all the accordions?  

Questions like these I don't have answers to.

Not every song on this sing-along album sounds like Nazi propaganda, though.  There are polka-ish numbers, which shouldn't be too shocking for anyone, considering the rabid obsession Americans had with polka music in the '60s.  Other songs sound more folksy in nature (folksy in the Rankin Bass/Glenn Yarbrough The Hobbit vein, that is) - again, not too shocking considering the climate of American music back then.  There's even some children's songs on here. . . and yes, they're equally justifiable and run-of-the-mill for the time period.

While the song styles themselves vary every-so-slightly, the one consistent variable across all songs on this album (aside from the over-reliance on accordions) is the relentless, Aryan male choir.  Whether the song's fast or slow, hard or soft, march or polka, folk or children's, the Fuhrer's Supreme Choir rolls ever onward, crushing all resistance in its way.  There is no stopping the constant barrage of baritone, male bellowing that refuses to cede a single inch or decibel across both sides of this Holiday album.  Poland, France, Belgium, Norway, Czechoslovakia. . . . and now Holiday Sing Along with Mitch. 

What we really need here is for this choir to suddenly find itself bogged down and stuck in snowy, -30 degree weather for awhile.  

If history has shown us anything, guys, it's that a Russian Winter is a sure-fire way to force the Germans to a grinding halt. . .

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Indiana Jones said it best, folks: "Nazis. I hate these guys.")

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Fifteen Year Anniversary, Take Two

Heading South on I-75

Well, we decided to take a second crack at this, America.  

Houghs tempted fate and went for a do-over with their 15th Wedding Anniversary in Frankenmuth this weekend (now that we no longer have Covid, which ruined our plans the first time around.)  No kids, no set itinerary, no f***s given.

Somehow pulled it off, too.

The Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth - deep in Nazi-held Germany.

We had eerily good luck all weekend long, which is rare for us because while we've always managed to avoid major catastrophes in our past travels (thank God), we're accustomed to minor setbacks here and there.  That kinda goes with the territory when you're out and about and having to rely on hotels, restaurants, stores, etc.   We expected large crowds, or long wait times, or bad traffic - any combination of these sorts of things - during our weekend away, and were a little creeped out when there was only some moderate congestion at Bronner's Saturday morning.

Not that I'm complaining, folks.  I was a big fan of 'hitting every green light,' so to speak.  Wish that shit would happen more often.

Anyway, the pics themselves walk you through the gist of it, so here you go - 15th Wedding Anniversary, Take Two. . .

Checking in went pretty smooth - a short line at the desk but that's to be expected on a weekend in Frankenmuth, especially this time of year.

Safe to say we're probably not gonna forget our room number. . .

We were at the far back of the hotel, but fortunately our room was nearby a back entrance so we didn't have to hike a ridiculously long way to get anywhere.

Tower Entrance

All these hotel rooms have German last names, I guess named after the original immigrants who settled in this area.  Kris and I were Team Schaberg this weekend.

Not terrible rooms, but not worth the $250 a night price tag, that's for sure.  I guess you pay for location with stuff like this.

The back porch where we really didn't spend a heck of a lot of time hanging out, but Kris insisted on getting.

Our room overlooked this random baseball diamond.  Thank God Kris and I are both huge into sports.

This is basically the only time this porch was utilized.

We decided to grab some take out dinner from Oma's Restaurant, right in the hotel.  It's the same chicken that's famous in Frankenmuth, but I ended up getting a burger and fries anyway.

Following dinner, we headed downtown to do some shopping.  I can't pass by Kern's without taking a picture.

We stopped off in Little Bavaria's River Place, but most of the shops were closed by the time we got down there (after 7pm.)

After the River Place, we headed further down to the road and stopped off at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant and Castle Shops. . .

While shopping around the basement stores, I spotted this merch shrine for Frankenmuth's most famous hometown heroes. . .

Pretty sure this is racist.

We ended up heading back to the hotel by about 9:00pm because so many of the restaurants and shops were closed or else slammed with customers - we figured it'd be better to get up early tomorrow morning and get a jump on things.

The following morning, Kris ran and grabbed us a couple coffees from the gift shop downstairs.  Only took a half an hour.

An assortment of Schabergs.

Heading to the car.  You can tell I'm super stoked Kris wanted to get a selfie in front of the hotel.

We knew we wanted to knock out a run to Bronner's this weekend, and being November now and everything (Christmas Pre-Season, if you will), we knew the place was gonna be jam-packed with assholes.  The earlier we got there the better, so I really cracked the whip and made sure Kris got herself ready for the day in a timely manner (I believe she was appreciative of this, but who knows.)

Checking out orchestra ornaments.  We got there about 10:30am, and while it was definitely busy, it was manageable.  We were able to shop around for ornaments and decor while pushing a cart (without losing our patience), and we even placed an embroidery order for a family set of stockings and only had to wait 45 minutes.  An hour or so later we saw that wait time had tripled.

For the classy Trumper.

We left Bronners after two hours or so, right around lunchtime, and they had already started to make people queue up outside the building.

That line stretched back for a long, looooooong ways.  I'm sure people were pissed I was taking a picture, but who cares - that's what they get for subjecting themselves to this shit.

We headed back downtown and decided to eat lunch at Prost - a winery/restaurant we've both heard good things about.  Being lunch time and everything, there was a 20-minute wait (our longest wait of the entire weekend), so we decided to hit up a couple neighboring shop while we waited.)  We never made it across the street to the Cheese Haus, unfortunately.

Kris got a text message saying our table was ready, so we headed back to the restaurant. . . where Kris could get herself another f***ing selfie.

They do wine samplers at this place, which was cool.  Kris got a sweet wine sampler, which was definitely up her alley (she's big on stuff like moscatos and reislings.)

I did the tap sampler, which was just the six wines they had on tap at that time.  Some were good, some were meh. . . but hell, it's booze.

We ordered a couple panini sandwiches, and split them so we could each have a half of a different sandwich (our go-to move when we're trying out new food or restaurants.)  Food was super good here.

After lunch we walked around downtown a bit more, ducking into shops, etc.

Kinda bummed we never got around to eating here, but we still got to eat their chicken I guess.

Who rents these?  Seriously.

Heading back to the hotel to grab a couple things and recharge.  And that, of course, means traversing the Headless Horseman's covered bridge. . .

This bridge is pretty cool, though.

Back at the hotel

Yeah, Kris.

So the plan was to head back to the room so I could grab a couple Visa gift cards I had in my duffel bag, but when we got their Princess here decided she wanted to like down and close her eyes for a bit (I'm blaming the wine sampler, folks.)  So we ended up hanging out in the room for an hour so she could power-nap.

Tried this Michigan cider while I killed time in the room.  Dry, but pretty good.

Following Kris' siesta, we loaded back up into the car and headed down to River Place to hit up all the shops that were closed the previous night when we were last there.

I don't know the name of this river.

Little Bavaria

More Kris selfies. . .

After an hour or so of shopping, we decided to hit up Cherry Republic so we could sample some local Michigan wines.  They had some really good ones here, so after our samplers we bought a couple bottles and souvenir glasses.

More shops

Kris insisted on stopping off into a bead store.  Who knows why, neither of us use beads for shit.

After about three hours of shopping throughout River Place, we decided to grab some dinner down at Frankenmuth Brewery, which has pretty good beer and, from we had heard, some pretty good food.

We checked in and the hostess just so happened to be one of my former students (from, like, six years ago), and she told us it'd be about a 20-minute wait.  Another employee there (shown here) just so happens to be the younger daughter of the science teacher on my team (small frickin' world, folks.)  We took this pic to send to her mom, and then I asked if it'd be a shorter wait time if we just sat at the bar instead of waiting for a table.  They moved some stuff around and sat us right away, after only waiting a couple minutes.  It helps to know people, I guess.

Wiener dogs on the tap handles.

And they even had wine, so Kris could drink, too.

. . . yes, Kris wanted a selfie at the bar, too.

Kris was really hungry, so she even ordered this giant-ass pretzel as an appetizer.  I was full from all the booze sampling we had been doing all day, so I couldn't really match her.

We only ate about a third of our entrees before we decided to throw in the towel and box up our leftovers.

Returning to the hotel after a long day of shopping and wine-tasting.  We were fortunate to come out of this 'anniversary' weekend unscathed, and having had such incredible luck - I guess the fates figured they owed us one after canceling our plans last month with that Covid bullshit.

- Brian