Pretty paper
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Pretty ribbons of blue.
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(spoken) Man oh man,
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I just love Christmas
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it's just so darn neat.
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I kinda wish every day was Christmas,
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except Christmas eve and the Fourth of July.
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We wouldn't want to miss out on the fireworks, would we?
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When I was a kid, we used to get the Christmas catalog from Montgomery Wards in Chicago.
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Sometimes we'd get it as early as late August.
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It was the big book of wishes, hopes and desires.
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My three brothers and I were allotted twenty-five bucks a piece, including tax.
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So I'd make up a different Christmas list every night
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from the first of September 'til the twenty-forth of December.
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Matter of fact, let me present you with my Christmas credentials.
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When I was three years old, at least that's what my mother told me,
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I ate an entire ornament. I ate a big red one, I thought it was an apple.
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They kinda freaked out and was gonna take me to the hospital
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but they couldn't stop me from laughing so they just left me alone.
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So I guess I still got that Christmas in me all the time, you know?
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One year, I got a wooden Roly-Poly for Christmas,
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you know the things you knock down and they bounce right back up.
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They made 'em out of wood back then, that's how old I am.
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Nowadays, they make 'em out of plastic.
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My mom says "they just don't make 'em like that anymore". And I says, "no ma they don't".
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Then there was the year I came home only eave from the army,
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from Germany to marry my highschool sweetheart on the day after Christmas.
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My little brother Billy, who was twelve at the time,
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had just gotten his first job so he was able to afford to buy some Christmas presents
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for his brothers and his mom and dad out of his own pocket.
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Billy had a job selling subscriptions for the Chicago Tribune.
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He told me this guy named Rocky would pick him up in a station wagon,
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him and some other boys, and he'd take 'em out to some strange neighborhood
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and drop 'em off and he gave them this whole spiel to give their potential customers.
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Supposedly their little brother had won a free trip to our nation's capital Washington, D.C.,
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but he couldn't go on the trip if his older brother wouldn't accompany him
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so if you would please buy a subscription to the Chicago Tribune then my little brother will be happy.
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Wow, what a shyster! Some people'll do anything to get to the Whitehouse.
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Then there was the year that my mom and dad gave me my first guitar.
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Ah man it was gorgeous, I still got the thing.
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It was a like aqua blue. Kinda dark aqua blue with a cream colored heart. Was a Silvertone from Montgomery Wards. The model was called Kentucky Blue and man when I saw that sitting under the tree I just couldn't wait.
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First year so I didn't know how to play it,
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I'd just stand in from of the mirror with a string around my neck with that guitar and I'd try to look like Elvis.
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Then my brother Dave taught me a couple of chords,
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now I'm here in your living room singing and talking to you.
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It's funny how things work out.
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So-a whyn't you go find a stranger and extend your hand to 'em.
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If you see somebody looks like they ain't doin' quite as well as you, slip 'em a buck,
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'specially if they don't ask for spare change.
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Go buy your honey a cuckoo clock or a musical snow shaking water ball,
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that when you wind it up it plays,
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"I want you, I need you, I love ya with all my heart."
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'cause after all, hell man, it's Christmas.
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Away in a manger no crib for a bed.
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The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.
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The stars in the sky look down where he lay.
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The little Lord Jesus asleep on the (1-2) hay.
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(spoken) Merry Christmas Everybody.
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(words finally transcribed by fancy nancy)
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John Prine Christmas
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John Prine |