Editor’s Note: This is one of our favorite holiday treats, so it seemed a good time to re-publish the article from a couple of holidays ago. Be sure to stick around for the bonus bit at the end!
“Christmas Wrapping” was a 1982 radio hit by Ohio band The Waitresses which put a cat amongst the pigeons as far as holiday standards are concerned. Every year at this time, we hear the cozy crooning of Sinatra and Crosby. Anyone sick of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”? Thankfully, there are a few songs that look at the season through different eyes, and “Christmas Wrapping” is one of them, offering a blessedly less treacly take.
Seriously, how many festive hits start with the words “Bah Humbug”? The late, great Patty Donahue, who with Chris Butler helped lead The Waitresses – at least retracts this slightly in the very first line, calling her words ‘too strong’ as Christmas is her ‘favorite holiday.’ This sets the tone for a story focusing on the various misses and mishaps people go through in a year.
Related: “The Waitresses Had A Wonderful Start”
Specifically, “Christmas Wrapping” centers around Donahue’s character struggling to connect with a guy she keeps meeting up with, only for fate to intervene every time. Through spring, summer and all the way to Halloween, she and her love interest keep having to cancel on each other or fail to follow through on their various meet-cutes. As John Lennon once sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
For these reasons, “Christmas Wrapping” is still hugely relatable. Instead of sugar-coating the season, The Waitresses present a positive, if world-weary, spin on what it means to appreciate Christmas.
Butler, who wrote the track in the summer of 1981 incorporating various unused song snippets, calls it “ironically sappy.” He was strong-armed into writing the song for a compilation published by ZE Records, an event to which he refers as the “irony of ironies.” “I am the most unbelievable Scrooge,” Butler admitted in an interview with SongFacts. The song was inspired by the rising trend in rap music at the time, and as such, Donahue chatters through the lyrics. It was a stark contrast to other songs that flooded the holiday airwaves at the time, and thankfully, it’s endured.
Butler is spot-on with his song’s self-analysis. It is certainly “ironically sappy.” The clear message behind “Christmas Wrapping” is that life isn’t always going to be as full of joyful laughter as Frank and Bing would have you believe. If anything, it shows that you can still enjoy the holidays, even if you’re not the most festive person on 34th Street. Donahue’s character may lament missed chances, but she’s happy to spend a peaceful Christmas on her own, knowing that it’s her reward for a mixed bag of a year.
Where the sappiness comes in, of course, is that Donahue receives more rewards than just “the world’s smallest turkey.” She walks into her love interest once again at the all-night grocery, who just so happens to be spending Christmas alone, too – a coincidence that leads the vocal character to claim her “happy ending.”
“Christmas Wrapping” remains one of The Waitresses’ most enduring hits, which still blows Butler’s mind. However, he’s less Scrooge-like about it these days. “I am absolutely gobsmacked every year,” the lyricist confirms. “I get such warm fuzzies from people saying, ‘It’s not Christmas until I hear (‘Christmas Wrapping’).”
-Graham Pierrepoint
CHRISTMAS BONUS! The Guitar Behind the Song
Editor’s Note: Santa delivered us an early gift when we were able to hook up with Chris Butler, guitarist for The Waitresses and writer of “Christmas Wrapping,” by way of our friend and guitar guru Randolph Hudson.
Back in 1980, Randolph bought a Vox “Robin’s egg blue” Teardrop guitar from a music store store on New York’s Long Island. As Randy explains, “I briefly taught there, alongside Jeff Allegue (Musical Director for Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Taylor Dayne). I moved shortly after to the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. I had a loft that I shared with Mars Williams, the sax/reed player in the Waitresses and The Psychedelic Furs. I had met Chris Butler in 1979 when his previous band, Tin Huey, had moved from Akron Ohio to NYC. Chris visited our loft during the rehearsals for recording sessions at Electric Lady. Chris mentioned that his Strat was giving him a lot of trouble in the studio, tuning stability, intonation, etc. I showed him my Vox Teardrop, and invited him to borrow it. If memory serves, it was a couple of days later that he told me it would difficult to part with it, and wanted to buy it. I dug the guitar, but did not have that “special bond” as I had with other instruments, and I sold it to him for what I had paid for it. I will not disclose the price, but it was deal!”
That was a the beginning of an odyssey that took the guitar all over the world, before Chris was able to bring it home. It’s a really cool story, best left to Chris to tell himself here, courtesy of NPR.
Chris Butler is a founding member of The Waitresses and writer of “Christmas Wrapping.” He’s also a songwriter, founder of Future Fossil music, Guinness Book of World Records holder for the longest pop song (“The Devil Glitch”) and current creator/compiler of “The Infinite Glitch” (“a joke taken too far”).
Randolph A. Hudson III is a composer and electric guitarist who’s co-written, recorded and performed with members of Gong, The Waitresses, The Fugs, Shox Lumania, Psychedelic Furs, Soft Machine and many more.
Image: Fair Use PR photo of The Waitresses
GRAHAM!!!! Thanks for this! Much appreciated! One minor quibble: The Guinness award was for the original song called “The Devil Glitch”, not “The Major Glitch” as stated. And the URL for “The Infinite Glitch” project is . Happy Merry/CB
Hmmm…the site won’t let me post the URL for “The Infinite Glitch” NB: I am still taking submissions for this, so if you’d like more info, please email me. Best/CB
Infiniteglitch.net
HMMM…the site won’t let me post the URL. infiniteglitch dot net
The Waitresses had a grand total of one hit, 1982’s “I Know What Boys Like” — if you consider peaking at only #62 on Billboard;’s Hot 100 singles chart scoring a “hit.” The potential inherent in their never-charting “Christmas Wrapping” was blunted by the fact that, despite a catchy (but un-Christmasy sounding) backing track, Patty Donahue’s mumbled lyrics are so incoherent that it’s hard to make out much of just what she is singing. And contrary to what is this article states about Sinatra and Crosby’s Yuletide output, “joyful laughter” is NOT the tone of all successful Christmas records. How much “joyful laughter” is evoked by “Silent Night,” “White Christmas,” “O Holy Night,” “Merry Christmas Darling,” “The Christmas Shoes” or “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)”? Keep in mind that there are basically three kinds of Yuletide tunes: the goodtime Santa/Frosty fantasy favorites (“Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer”), the romantic/nostalgic gems (“I’ll Be Home Foir Christmas”) and the religious carols (“O Little Town of Bethlehem”). The overall feel of “Christmas Wrapping” would put it in that first category if only a) people could comprehend the lyrics and b) it had been arranged and orchestrated to sound even a little bit Christmasy.
DEBBIE HARRY & BLONDIE RIP OFF.
I first heard this during Christmas season 1986. I loved the sax riff and the key change during the verses (when they hit that C on every fourth bar, that’s the twist that makes this song). I wanted the single for Christmas but one of my relatives bought me a local record titled “Christmas Rap,” thinking it was this.
That’s what I love about the 2020s; you don’t have to wait for these songs to come on the radio just to hear them. Same with the once-rare “Father Christmas” by The Kinks.
Having an especially hectic and cynical holiday season that year, this song spoke to me. So much, that I bought the LP it was on, I Could Rule the World (If I Could Only Find the Parts). Its bonus track was the Square Pegs theme song.i think of the Waitresses as a co-ed girl group.
I love the tune and always have!
I love this song! The beginning riff is fantastic. And the story, which goes from “bah humbug” to “Christmas magic” always makes me smile.