10. December 2017 By Walter Price 0

Kt Emmerson: Don’t Have a Cow! I’ve got your 80’s Christmas Jam, The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping

The Waitresses are available on iTunes.

It snowed yesterday. In B.F.E. Texas, people! That is huge. And I have a frenzied kid hangover today to prove it. What better time to explore all the wrong, way back, not Bing Crosby Christmas songs on YouTube? Of course, we 80s babies love our Pogues, Christmas Eve in New York and The Clash’s This is England at Christmas Time, but I’m American and nothing says Christmas at home like a Blondie sound. The Waitresses, Christmas Wrapping hits the mark for me, at least this disenchanted year.

Forgive me as I rewind to my own personal childhood 80’s consumerist memory. When listening to these simple pop-punk cords I’m plucked back to Manor East Mall 1983. Musicland Record Store on the east side, Montgomery (monkey) Wards and Eckerd’s on the west. Traverse those brown terracotta tiles a few paces and you’re whiffing a sickly delightful buttery candy smell from Karmelkorn (for whom my brother at 16 became a manager—the real manager having skated out of his popping and sugar coating duties). Oh, I can’t forget my favorite spot for Big Red, Frito Pie, and locally famous Blue Bell Ice Cream) a little kiosk style short order café right outside of my very first employer Beall’s (thus all the Frito Pies and Big Red lunch breaks). Remember those days you begged your mom for Jams, a Walkman, and Coke Cola shirt (I wasn’t alt quite yet)? Well, come on now, give The Waitresses a whirl right round on your record, baby and let the old home memories wash over you. You’ll be home for Christmas…at the Mall.

For all your old mall memories check this site out. Sad and beautiful at the same time. And then thank your Rudolf red nose no one wears Jams anymore.