Chipmunks and Hippopotamuses

I am rapidly nearing critical mass on Christmas song repitition, but while I'm still enjoying them I have to say my two favorite songs (songs, not instrumental pieces) are "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Please, Christmas, Don't Be Late"--yes, the one performed by the Chipmunks.

The reason I like those songs, although they don't possess a lot of artistic merit, is that they are lively, upbeat, clever, and selfishly benevolent.

Unlike travesties such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman", the former of which contains the saddest bunch of fashion-driven hypocritical reindeer imaginable ("Frosty" is just STUPID), the songs I like are about children engaged in activities I can actually admire.

Youngsters discovering values and pursuing them, even if those values are a bit absurd, like a pet hippo, or trivial, like Alvin's hula hoop, are always going to be unequivocally adorable in my book.

And, anyway, why not a hippopotamus? When I was a small child, I had an elephant.

Given, it was stuffed.