The Definitive Field Guide to Holiday Musical Discussions, or, baby, it’s cold outside, but it’s still preferable to staying in here and having this B.S. conversation again.

As introduced by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in the 1949 movie Neptune’s Daughter….

It’s December, which I hope is known and beloved to you as the Holiday Season. Political controversy is at its height this year, but at least we can count our small blessings that Starbucks didn’t select any designs for their coffee cups that piss off the Christian Right. I’ll take all the sources of peace, or at least absence of conflict, that I can get.

In that spirit, I give you The Definitive Guide to Holiday Musical Discussions. My hope is that it will be handy to you, particularly in the inevitability of encountering This Song. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that has been the subject of far too much controversy for the last few holiday seasons. It falls into that sub-category of Songs That Aren’t Really Holiday Songs, But We Only Hear Them Around Holiday Time. They’re mostly songs either extolling or lamenting the fact that it’s cold now in the Northern Hemisphere. Songs that fall into this category include Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, and This Song.

…performed in a role-swap by the Gaga and the Gordon Leavitt, with Gaga as The Wolf, in 2013…

For those of you who have been in a cloistered convent for the past 25-40 years, the song in question is a dialogue between “The Wolf” and “The Mouse” (those two characters having been designated so by the song’s composer, Broadway great Frank Loesser). The Wolf spends the song trying to convince The Mouse to stay, because there’s a terrible blizzard going on. The Wolf cajoles, flatters, employs scare tactics, all to which The Mouse resolutely says no. It’s unclear by the end of the song whether Mouse has seen the efficacy of Wolf’s suggestion.

Those are the unbiased facts. Of those facts, thousands of interpretations have been offered. I’m not gonna go over them yet again, because I’d guess you’re as tired of the arguments as I am.

…and by Darren Criss and Chris Colfer on Glee, 2010. (I don’t know who was Wolf and who was Mouse in this version.)

Ergo, The DFGtHMD. Please feel free to download, screenshot, or print, and take with you to holiday gatherings or anywhere else you might be likely to get into it with another music lover. I’d also like to suggest that you have it at hand when you visit the Facebook; there you’ll also find it quite valuable to help you head off yet more drama.

Start in the upper right corner.

Here’s hoping it’s helpful to you. Merry Holidays, everyone!