“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?” Oh, sorry, that was just the neighbor’s home security system going off. 

If you’re like me, you’ve almost become numb to home and car alarm systems alerting neighbors and passersby that Freddy the Chihuahua has just set off the alarm one more time. It has become the 1990s version of “crying wolf.”

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Instead of being drawn to the alarm to see what is going on, most people now look for ways to drown out or get away from the irritating noise.

But it is time to hear, or at least sing about, sleigh bells ringing. How is that Christmas list coming?

Are you having trouble shopping for that special someone? Or that guy who has everything, or that person you don’t want to spend too much on because you really don’t like him that much in the first place?

Or that boss that you’re buying something for only because your co-workers are doing it, and you don’t want to be singled out as the “person who didn’t get the boss a present?

Or that certain someone you’re giving a gift to only because you’re afraid that she is going to give you something?

Well, these are difficulties we all face and are commonly referred to by the really smart psychoanalysts as Involuntary Gift Syndrome or IGS.

The people at the United Way are very familiar with IGS and, in fact, have perfected it to a fine art. Everyone has had at least one work experience where, in order to match a competitor or receive public praise, your employer leans on you hard to give generously to the United Way. The most suitable poster child for this charity would be Uncle Guido in a pin-striped suit with a violin case full of reasons why you should give generously.

It makes you think that the United Way folks have been attending IRS seminars about how to get the rest of us to do things voluntarily.

Well, despite all that, I have put together a collection of timeless Christmas carols that will be family treasures for generations of Lake Highlanders to come.

So, if you’re desperately seeking a gift idea for that difficult situation, look no further. Produced on the Advocate’s own record label (“AdVox”) under the direction of Advocate publisher and former Grateful Dead roadie Rick Wamre, I am proud to introduce for sale for the first time anywhere (not available in stores): Kef’s Collection of Christmas Classics: The Lake Highland Years.

This is soon-to-be priceless recording includes:

“I saw Three Ships on White Rock Lake” (they were stuck);

“Santa Claus Would Be Comin’ to Town” (if he could land at Love Field, but you know that Wright Amendment…);

“Deck the DART Trains with Boughs of Holly” (there’s lots of room of holly, if you catch my snowdrift);

“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” – a duet by Dallas County Commissioners John Wiley Price and Kenneth Mayfield;

“Silver Bells/Blue Christmas” – medley by Jerry Jones and those Dallas Cowboys currently out on parole;

“Walkin in a Winter Wonderland” (because the DART bus doesn’t come by here anymore);

“Have Yourself a Barry Switzer Christmas” – recorded live at The Men’s Club, and;

“We Wish You a Worldly Winter Solstice” – from the 1996 Public School Hymnal (wishing another student a Merry Christmas is now a second-degree felony).

This CD already has been endorsed by Mayor Ron Kirk as an official product of the City of Dallas (complete with the City motto, “In DART We Trust”), and has been part of Mayor Kirk’s recent trade missions to Argentina, South Africa, Lapland and Bunga-Bunga.

Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a true collector’s item. Merry Christmas!