It’s not that I’m a Scrooge or a Grinch or a member of the liberal, secular pinko elite. I just think that when it comes to Christmas spirit and holiday cheer, there can very much be “too much of a good thing.”

So I find it a little bit impossible to get into the mood as early as some people choose to. I’ve already made my feelings on Black Friday shopping well-known, and I think playing Christmas music in October should be a bombable offense. But usually by the first or second weekend in December, when Capital Brewery has been pumping out their Winter Skal for some time and I’ve started slipping Doc McG’s into my coffee on a regular basis, I start to feel Christmasy, and it’s a wonderful feeling.

It finally hit me today, through two diametrically different traditions.

Today I booked it back to my hometown to see my littlest sister perform in her fourth and final Monroe High School Madrigal Dinner. Before her, my other little sister performed in the same dinner for three years. Before her, I performed in the same dinner for four years.

I haven’t worn tights since.

But being that a member of the family has been represented in the dinner for the past 11 years running, it was something of a bittersweet milestone, commemorated with a very sweet gesture from our parents. The music was still the same, the costumes were the same, but the students in them were generations removed from when I was the one giving the Wassail Toast. It was eerie.

I got talked into doing the thing when I was a freshman in high school, and didn’t take it very seriously at first. The costumes were goofy, the music was weird and the event itself caused me to miss a Packer game. Four years later, I was singing my heart out as my partner squeezed my hand for reassurance and we both bit back tears, knowing it was our last go-round in what had somehow, inexplicably become a tradition.

So glowing with those reminiscences and today’s Packer victory, I made my way back to Madison and decided to indulge in a much newer, yet equally sentimental, holiday tradition of my own — on my own.

A few years back, some good friends and I collaborated on one of the more colossal undertakings of my life. Coincidentally, it also started as an idea nobody took seriously.

One November evening, as we sat together in a writer’s meeting for the show we produced weekly for the UW’s student radio station, one of the crew blurted out, “We should make, like, a Christmas musical.” And we all stared at him dumbfounded, then made fun of him, then got back to the business at hand. And then somehow, we undertook what turned out to be one of the most harried, meaningful experiences of my college career, at least.

And so was born “Slightly Off Kristmas — a Slightly Off Kilter Adventure in 3d.” And we had so much fun making that, we decided to make a sequel the next year, called “Slightly Off Kristmas 2 — The Gospel According to Wiley.” And in the years since these things happened, I can’t really and truly get into the holiday spirit until I give them a listen and laugh myself silly.

Sure, the humor is a little dated (Hillary Clinton running for president and Brett Favre playing for the Packers?!? Oh my!). And sure, the whole thing is incredibly immature. But, damnit, the holidays are now forever linked, for me, to that group of people and the labor we invested in poking a little fun at the institution of Christmas. And until my dying day, I will not feel festive until I’ve hunkered down with a can of cheap beer and giggled my way through both episodes in their entirety.

So here, for your listening pleasure, is Slightly Off Kristmas. Moments to note include Russ Feingold’s solo (6:20), my falsetto(9:30), Jesus explaining the hard reality of business (15:30), the best rendition of “Bringing Sexy Back” ever (24:10), sawing the arms off one of Santa’s elves (28:30), an underlord of hell ****ing with the wrong state capitol analyst (32:45), Mrs. Claus at a sex toy party (37:20), gratuitous Star Wars references (54:30) and the greatest overstatement of the potential value of stem cell research in the history of mankind (57:00).

And then there’s a whole other episode. Enjoy.

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download Slightly Off Kristmas 1

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download Slightly Off Kristmas 2