Christmas Shoes

Every year I listen to the song Christmas Shoes by NewSong during the holidays, usually the day right after Thanksgiving. Often, through the course of listening to carols, I will hear it a few more times as well. I don’t do this because I like the song. In fact, I do consider it to be the worst song that I’ve ever heard. I find it so bad that I just can’t look away, and listen to it every year because there is usually some new aspect of how bad it is that I discover. So this year, I am going to try to chronicle all of those aspects.

I’m assuming that if you’re reading this, you’re familiar with the song. So let’s just move through the song from the beginning, and I’ll highlight the lyrics as I go.

“Sir, I want to buy these shoes, for my mama, please, it’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size.” For a song about just how special these shoes are, can we really not get any description? The only quality that they seem to have is that they’re in his mother’s size. Now, I don’t believe that most little boys have any sense of women’s fashion, but seriously, the ONLY selling point is that they’re her size.

“Could you hurry, sir, daddy says there’s not much time. You see, she’s been sick for quite a while. I know these shoes would make her smile. And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.” There is so much here that bothers me. It’s horrifying that he may miss his mother’s final hours because he’s buying shoes. The only nice thing is that he wants to make her smile, but I would bet that his mother would rather spend her final hours with her son by her side. But the final line is, I think, the most illustrative and the worst. Personally, I’m offended at the idea that Jesus cares at all what someone’s physical appearance is. I definitely don’t think that only “pretty people” should get into heaven. But I think that the line actually says more about the environment that the little boy currently lives in. He does say that it’s his desire that his mother looks pretty for Jesus, not hers. And I think it shows that to him, the highest achievement of a woman is to look pretty. It’s not enough that she’s been a kind, selfless, loving mother to him. To the boy, Jesus will not welcome her with open arms because of her character, and the life that she’s lived. The most important thing is that she’s pretty. And that’s why he’s missing precious time with her to buy shoes.

The boy then realizes that he doesn’t have enough money. He’s frantic and so the narrator steps in to help. “So I laid the money down,” is the exact line. It bothers me that it’s unclear if the narrator pays for the shoes entirely, or only pays the remainder that the boy owes. It’s possible that he’s only adding like $5 to cover the tax. Either way, though, the values of the song state that it’s good that another customer steps in to help. It is unthinkable that the store would make any kind of concession because it’s Christmas. The store needs to make money, and their bottom line is more important than making a gesture to acknowledge the boy’s humanity. It’s also unthinkable that the boy find a gift that is actually within his budget. After all, these shoes are in his mother’s size. Bluntly put, the message in this part of the song is that it is right and good for poor people to overextend themselves to buy things they don’t need so that corporations can get rich.

Anyway, the boy is thrilled, and the narrator is filled with the Christmas Spirit. “I knew I’d caught a glimpse of heaven’s 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.” Before the boy is even out the door, the narrator is thinking about what it all means to himself, because clearly, he’s more important than the little boy is. Frankly, it’s staggering to me that he thinks that God sent this child away from his mother’s death bed in her final hours to teach a wealthier man about Christmas (of which the meaning seems to be that we should all give big stores money with no questions asked). But it also really bothers me that the narrator is giving himself a pat on the back, and considers this whole thing to be positive. This little boy is already living in poverty, and that’s when he had two parents to look after him. What kind of a future is the boy facing, now that his father has to raise him alone? Plus, we know that the mother has “been sick for quite awhile.” It’s pretty much impossible to believe that their family is going to be anything but saddled with massive medical debt. The future I picture here is that the father is going to work himself to the bone trying to pay for things and will consequently always be absent from the boy’s life. In all likelihood, the father is going to end up in an early grave, and there’s a good chance that the boy is going into a life of crime. Either that or crippling poverty for his entire life. But our narrator isn’t concerned with any of this. He paid for the shoes, so he’s a good person. He can feel good about himself, and that’s what’s important. Not the boy’s reality.

And then, just for good measure, we get the chorus again, with a bunch of children now, emphasizing the importance that the dying mother looks pretty. And since it’s all the children now, the song really underscores that being pretty is a universal ideal, not just the opinion of one boy. Also, we can’t lose sight of the message that women’s only value is in their appearance by focusing on the message that commercialization is the important thing about Christmas. But I guess that means the real message is that we can only look pretty by buying things, and that’s more important than love or helping people. That’s the real meaning of Christmas in The Christmas Shoes.