Have Yourself A Sociopathic Little Christmas!

So I'm not really a fan of Christmas music. Christmas movies either. Really anything Christmas-themed is not for me so you can imagine the personal hell I live in from late October through January every year.

Spend more than 10 minutes shopping and then try to tell me that the
mall at Christmas isn't where bad people should go when they die.

It's that amazing.

Compounding my torture is the fact that the music played in perpetual loop at my job has now turned exclusively to Christmas songs. The Sirius mix deemed work appropriate is full of the usual six or seven covers of John Lennon's Happy Christmas, some Alvin and the Chipmunks bullshit about a hula hoop and I'm pretty sure that's Sting singing I Saw Three Ships, but nothing, nothing could prepare me for The Christmas Shoes. Holy hell have you heard of this? No? Well prepare to have your face melted by religion.

"Ain't I a stinker?"

It's by some Christian group called NewSong and it came out like 12 years ago. If I'm understanding the lyrics correctly, the song tells the story of some dude (played by Rob Lowe in the movie, but we'll get to that) helping a little boy buy shoes for his dying mother on Christmas Eve. Touching, right? That is until Rob Lowe comes to the sociopathic conclusion that God, in a move straight out of the Old Testament, has given some random woman cancer just to teach him the true meaning of Christmas.

"I'm afraid it's cancer...fortunately
it's nothing a new pair of shoes won't cure! 
You know, because we women love shoes."

-Doctors, in the fucked up

universe in which this song is set 

Behold these disturbing lyrics:

Sir, I wanna buy these shoes
For my mama please
It's Christmas eve and these shoes are just her size

Could you hurry, sir?
Daddy says there's not much time
You see, she's been sick for quite a while
And I, know these shoes will make her smile
And I, want her to look beautiful
If mama meets Jesus tonight

I knew I caught a glimpse of heaven love
As he thanked me and ran out
I knew that God had sent that little boy to remind me
What Christmas is all about

Above: A screen shot of
The Christmas Shoes: The Game. 

If God arbitrarily murdering someones mother to teach some jackass in line at Payless about the wonder of the holiday shopping season isn't enough to drive you into the cold embrace of Atheism, nothing will. But it doesn't end there. The runaway success of this maudlin piece of horseshit has spawned an entire media empire. Oh yes, there's a country cover, a made-for-TV movie (like I said, starring Rob Lowe) and even a novelization of the movie. For those keeping score, that makes it a book based on a movie based on a song.

Pictured: Rob Lowe and the family
he destroyed through his ignorance of
the true meaning of Christmas.

But wait, there's more! The Christmas Shoes: The Movie isn't even the only movie. There's not one but two made-for-TV sequels: "Christmas Shoes Rising" and "Christmas Shoes Into Darkness" (ok, these are not the real titles, but wouldn't it be great if they were?). Collectively they're known as the Christmas Shoes Saga (also not true, but still). Yup, the movie about a woman getting Christmas cancer because of Rob Lowe is just the beginning of an epic trilogy...or should I say thrillogy?


So what kind of people buy into this? I don't know, but I suspect that there is significant overlap between those who enjoy The Christmas Shoes and people who buy 9/11 commemorative coins and wear holiday-themed sweaters without irony.

Google 'bad holiday sweaters.' Among the dozens of handlebar-mustached
hipsters mugging for the camera in their choice thrift store finds you'll find
 this woman taking her seasonal sweater-wearing very, very seriously.