The Inaugural “Ber Month” Hall of Fame Class
“Some folks consider it to be the kick off to Christmas season: the ‘Ber Months.’”
If you’ve never heard of the “Ber Months” before, they’re fairly easy to explain. September, October, November, and December. Frankly, it’s the most wonderful time of the year and when you affix the summer months of limitless possibility (June to August) to them, it becomes the undeniable “best half” of the year. But there’s just something magical about that autumnal turn into eventual winter. The way the coziest nights become awash in tradition and festivity. Aesthetics ranging from the spooky to the comforting to the merry and the best of storytelling, art, and love. It’s the best. As Annie on Community said in “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” “It’s the crazy notion that the longest, coldest, darkest nights can be the warmest and brightest.” That’s how I feel about the “Ber Months.” It just also helps that I enjoy cold, dark nights. Maybe it’s the Bostonian in me. Either way, I cherish the “Ber Months” with my whole being.
Now that November has arrived and we are halfway through these “Ber Months,” it felt like a good time to celebrate some stars who have helped make the “Ber Months” so special throughout my life. Because I have such an affinity for this time of the year, I end up attaching lots of fond, nostalgic memories to people, shows, and institutions that might not otherwise have been enjoyable. Your aunt likes to watch Live with Regis and Kelly and you always visit her for Thanksgiving? Suddenly, the mere mention of Regis Philbin reminds you of the “Ber Months.” NBC happened to own the rights to broadcasting the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Well, then Today will always be more emotionally resonant than Good Morning America. It might be a foreign concept of thinking about these cultural and seasonal stalwarts, but it’s how my heart has always operated. And while the inaugural class may likely be the only class, it felt only right to commemorate the “Ber Months” in a special way for some of the stars who made it so special, to me. Of course, loved ones aren’t withstanding here. Obviously, they’re the reasons why I love this so much in the first place. But it’s more accessible to write about talk show hosts than personal bonds, which are distinctly less fun to “sports-itize” like this.
Jimmy Fallon
I wrote extensively last year about how I felt Jimmy Fallon was our best cultural ambassador of Christmas, so I won’t necessarily rehash all of that here. Either way, my transition from loving Christmas as a child to loving it as an adult blossomed concurrently with my fixation on Jimmy Fallon as an entertainment hero of mine, so I always associate him with the best of Thanksgiving and Christmas. From the Macy’s parade to the “12 Days of Christmas Sweaters” to the Saturday Night Live opening monologue when he sang “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” throughout the halls of Studio 8H, Fallon and the holidays go together as well as — well — the rest of the people on this list.
Charles Schulz
Charles Schulz is an undeniable legend of the “Ber Months.” If anyone was going to be first ballot here, it had to be him. One of my favorite things to do is to check in with the Peanuts throughout the year, but there is no denying that their Valentine’s Day and Easter escapades pale when compared to what they get up to on Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The Peanuts are always a delight, but the fully hands-on Schulz adventures that came from the “Ber Month” holidays are absolutely the peak of their television special presences. And he runs the gamut through all of them!
Thanks to Schulz, we get to see the Peanuts in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s not just about seeing them, though. It’s about the fact that the aesthetics and the perspectives that exist in these specials helped redefined each of the holidays (Thanksgiving less so, admittedly). Yes, the Halloween and Christmas ones are the best, but the Thanksgiving one has its peculiar merits, too. Some of my favorite traditions revolve around seeing if Linus will learn his lesson about sitting in a pumpkin patch all night long and hoping Charlie Brown can navigate his depression in time to stave off commercialism. Few things bring me as much joy as these specials do and their idiosyncrasies of the voice actors and their transporting Vince Guaraldi music.
There are even more “Ber Month” specials from the Peanuts. A New Year’s Eve one in which Charlie Brown must read War and Peace, a Thanksgiving one that re-simulates the Mayflower story with the Peanuts, another Christmas one that invites Snoopy’s cousin to the party. None of them quite reach the same peaks, but they help Schulz pad his stats a bit. He’s in the Hall based on the ending of A Charlie Brown Christmas alone, so it’s all good.
Miss Piggy
Just like the Peanuts have become synonymous with the holiday seasons, how could we experience a true Christmas holiday if the Muppets weren’t involved? I didn’t want to just go the Schulz route by inducting Jim Henson, the creator, but can anyone deny how Miss Piggy has made the “Ber Months” her own?
Yes, she makes a venerable appearance in The Muppet Christmas Carol and cameos crucially in Muppets Haunted Mansion (though, as I say it, these might be better arguments for Gonzo), but the reason Miss Piggy leapt to mind when I considered who the Muppet representative would be is her role in the “12 Days of Christmas” that she and the rest of her felt friends sang with both John Denver and Jimmy Fallon. Each Muppet has their own role in the verse’s ever-expanding list (Fozzie’s might be the funniest), but whenever I think of the Muppets and Christmas, I think of Miss Piggy belting out, “Five golden rings” before punctuating it with a “Ba-dum-bum-bum,” vocalizing the instrumentation of the music. Eventually, every Muppet gets in on this onomatopoeia, but it’s Miss Piggy who serves as the unifier. She enhances our most fun Christmas tunes.
Al Roker
This one might seem a little silly, but as I said, I associate semi-random things with the “Ber Months” and feel immense nostalgia for things I might otherwise not care about — simply because they were intertwined with the way I felt during the holiday season. (It’s why “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” reminds me of Christmas; Taylor Swift released Red (Taylor’s Version) on November 12 when I was already listening to holiday music.)
Hence why Al Roker deserves a spot here. As a fixture on Today, he is as likely to give the weather (both nationwide and setting up “your neck in the woods”) as he is to host interviews and newsreels and cultural segments. On Today, Al Roker is not just the meteorologist. He is the host I most commonly associate with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. So much so, in fact, that when he is ailing or recovering from some sort of illness or procedure, his absence notably decreases the enjoyment I get from watching the parade. NBC exudes the holidays enough as it is (what with the Radio City Rockettes and the Rockefeller Christmas Tree and all), but Al Roker’s hosting of the Macy’s Parade makes them even more connected. Plus, he once shoved a man dressed as a butter. ’Tis the season.
Matthew Stafford
I will always be a New England Patriots fan, first and foremost, but I cannot deny that when I see the Detroit Lions play, I root for them. The reason for this is because they remind me of Thanksgiving. For my middle school newspaper, one of the first articles I wrote was about why the Lions and the Dallas Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving. This is something innately appealing to me because I love the holiday season so I naturally gravitate towards any and all traditions associated with it. It’s always fun to have a football game on in the background while the Thanksgiving festivities unfold and because the Lions always get the one o’clock game, they’re the ones I get to see the most.
During my coming-of-age, the Lions had a lot of tumult and struggle (most Thanksgivings, they would lose), but the consistency within them was always wide receiver Calvin Johnson and quarterback Matthew Stafford. Now, Johnson is retired and Stafford is a Ram, but for a long tenure, they were as reliably seen on Thanksgiving as my grandmother, Roker, and Santa Claus. Whenever I see Stafford play, I think of Thanksgiving. To me, that’s special enough to deserve inclusion when we have to get a sports person in here somewhere.
Shinmin Li
When it comes to holiday media and programming, there are many things I find more quality than the weekly Food Network baking competitions like Halloween Wars and Holiday Wars. Movies like Elf, episodes of Community, specials from Rankin Bass, albums by Kacey Musgraves. All things I’d rather be engaging with than Halloween Wars and Holiday Wars, to be sure. However, these are so famously and obviously infectious with Christmas spirit. The Food Network shows? Not as obvious and not as high in quality, but they absolutely lather on the vibes like nothing else.
I don’t watch them as much as I did when I lived with my parents and they had a DVR, but even just seeing a fifteen second ad for them immediately transports me back to early dark nights during the week, surrounded by holiday decorations. Half paying attention to the show while sharing dinner with the family. That is what those shows provided to me when it comes to the “Ber Months.” Just the right kind of festive kitsch. And the person most commonly associated with them is the restaurateur/host/judge, Shinmin Li. She always pops up in these things and I still see her associated with the shows. Even just hearing the name evokes the feelings I get when I’m in my favorite time of year. That alone seems worthy of inducting her into the Hall.
Plus, she used to follow me on Instagram, but I never followed her back and then I guess she noticed that eventually and blocked me! What an honour!
Nat King Cole
Speaking of things you hear that evoke the feelings of the favorite time of year: Nat King Cole’s voice. I mean, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine (and I know he has them) what non-Christmas songs are like by him. “Unforgettable” makes me squirm a little bit if I hear it during the year because it feels wrong to hear Cole in, like, April. His velvety smooth voice is just so immovably attached to the way Christmas music sounds that I cannot divorce him from the seasons.
Obviously, his Christmas résumé is impeccable. The Magic of Christmas as an album of its own, yes, but also so many non-album holiday singles. I can hear his version of “Deck the Halls,” “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” “I Saw Three Ships,” and more so clearly in my mind just by looking at his visage and the titles combined. That’s a hard thing to do for songs that are so ubiquitous you can find them in Bibles, American songbooks, and elementary classrooms! There are so many versions and yet, the Coles are undeniably clear in my mental ears. Plus, “The Christmas Song.” I mean, come on. It’s a bold move to sing a song about Christmas and call it the Christmas song when there are so many in the genre. Yet, Cole did that and he made it one of the unequivocal best Christmas songs ever made. It deserves its title and it deserves it because of Cole. In a sea of myriad incredible Christmas musicians, Cole always has a special “Sounds of the Seasons” type place in my heart.
And that is my inaugural class of “Ber Month” legends! Some omissions and snubs — I’m sure — jumped to mind immediately. Arthur Rankin, Jr., Jules Bass, Joel Grey, Vincent Price, Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé, Jean Shepherd, Walt Disney, Martine McCutcheon, Mike Flanagan, Shane Victorino, Chevy Chase, Tim Babb, Catherine O’Hara. Lots of good options. Maybe it’ll be worth revisiting one day! I never mind heading back into the “Ber Months.”
