Christmas freak.

Sing along with me (to the tune of Jingle Bells)... Oooooh! Christmas freak, Christmas freak, flying through the sun! Burn your charges to a crisp, your work is almost done... Oh!

Hi, folks. Just celebrating the holiday the best way we know how... gasping for breath as our maniac pilot drives our sub-standard spacecraft through the center of a blue-hot star. Sure, I know what you're thinking - that's not the kind of Christmas I remember, right? Not the kind you used to know back home in Sheboygan. Well, I'm with you on that, as it happens. I just mean that we're celebrating as best we can under the circumstances... specifically, those of flying headlong through a burning sun. We try to think of it as a slightly hotter version of "'over the river and through the woods" ... though Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is quick to remind me that that is, in fact, a Thanksgiving song, and Thanksgiving was a month ago. Right again, Marvin. Where would we be without you?

But enough about our problems. How is your holiday season going? We don't hear nearly enough about you and yours... it's always just about us and ours, right? For all I know, you too are spending this holiday out in the farther reaches of our galaxy, being flown around in an obsolete spacecraft by a maniacal pilot named Urich. Or perhaps not. The thing is, when we of Big Green elected to go on a brief tour in support of our new album, International House, we hadn't considered the possibility of spending the entire Christmas week in-between stops in deep interstellar space. We'd pictured more of a pleasant series of performances in relatively small extraterrestrial venues, where people flash little lights instead of applauding and show their appreciation by dropping a little extra cash in the man-sized tuber's little tin cup. (He typically uses it for plant food, but it makes a good tip jar as well.) That was not to be, alas. Just some rip-it-up type thrash-fests on Aldebaran and the mysterious planet Neuton, then stuck in transit. And it's dull out here, man! Even the Lincolns are bored - both of them. And they never agree on anything!

Still, you find ways of keeping busy, even cooped up in a tin can like this. As Urich has navigated his erratic path through the center of this burning star, we've taken advantage of the relative quiet to put the finishing touches on a new song. It's called "High Horse", and it's something of a farewell number for George Dubya Bush, who will soon be leaving the Oval Office for blessed obscurity. Some of you may remember that the president was kind enough to accompany us on our very first interstellar tour. (For details, check out our blog archive for May and June 2000.) We thought it only appropriate to offer up a big country goodbye for Tex, which we are posting as a free mp3 on our site. Be the first to download it at www.big-green.net/highhorse/. We whittled it out of cleared-away sage brush in our spare time. (You can still smell the burning timber.... or is that our re-entry parachute on fire? Not sure. Not sure at all.)

So anyway... We'll be seeing you on the other side of the annual divide (known as New Year's) and hopefully on the other side of this burning sun Urich is driving us through. Til then, happy krimble and a very goo year. (Apologies to J. Lennon.)