Christmas Dinner by Vance Gilbert (Cover Version) @martinjameskelly

Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Original Version
youtu.be/VcbtWaRzqzg?si=fXuCyBBUjDKjSpl3

"Christmas Dinner" by Vance Gilbert

That's not the most comfortable couch I know
The LED from the VCR gives your face the sweetest glow
Kind, kind kid you are

Giving up your childhood bedroom to your Aunt Darlene
Snoring in her facelift, a brunette wig
And her opinions

Leaky old dishwasher still sings Ave Maria at that high pitch
When it's filled too full, like it's calling out
Hey everybody take a breath have a second piece of pie
Darlene went on and on
You just got up and left the kitchen

I may never understand, but I'm listening
You took the Christmas dress that I bought you and made me a shirt
Everything can change except for me
Being your daddy
And I'm listening
I'm listening

You'd come home from school with all these ideas
But we knew it wasn't shellfish or peanuts that made you
Want to claw your way out of your own skin
All these years
Just a phase we figured
So we just shrugged at your purple hair

I covered up your Christmas dinner with a piece of wax paper
It's on the second shelf of the fridge
Pulling these blankets up under your chin
With a kiss on your forehead
While the moon outside the living room window
Goes from white to gold

I may never understand, but I'm listening

You took the Christmas dress that I bought you and made me a shirt

Everything can change except for me
Being your daddy
And I'm listening
I'm listening

Christmas Dinner by Vance Gilbert (Cover Version)

The Song is the Thing by Phil Hogg (Cover Version)

$Songwriting Songwriting class begins the same An envelope with my name A check I slide across the desk Beside a song I’ve second-guessed We read the lines out loud and slow She asks me what I meant to show We sit with words that don’t feel right And try to turn them toward the light Sometimes I wonder as we start If something shifts inside the art If it begins with a transaction Does it lose a little fraction Of the quiet, sacred spark That first flickered in the dark? Can my song still be meaningful If it’s part of something paid for? Or is it simply what we do To help a fragile thing come through? They say a song should stand alone That truth is best when grown at home But singers train and runners fall And no one learns without a call Even healers seek a guide When doubt is heavy at their side So why should music be the one That must be born from only one? Still it lingers in my chest That small uneasiness at rest If it begins with a transaction Does it dull the first reaction? Or is payment just a frame For tending carefully a flame? Is the spark diminished there Or simply handled with more care? Maybe money isn’t sin Just the door we’re entering Some say the truest songs are free Wolves howling endlessly Or orcas calling through the sea Wind chimes stirred by mystery But wolves don’t wonder if they’re heard And whales don’t weigh a single word They sing because they have to sing Not asking what the cost might bring If it begins with a transaction Maybe that’s just human action We trade our hours, trade our skill To help each other climb a hill Maybe art is still as true When someone walks the path with you And maybe grace is not undone By how the work is finally done So I slide the envelope once more Pull out my rough draft as before And somewhere in the give and take A better song begins to wake$

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