Matt Rogers Makes the Yuletide Gay

This is not the time for thinking. It's the time for crooning.

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JUST IN TIME to celebrate this magical season of warmth and togetherness, a new Christmas special arrives to remind us of the most important truths about this wonderful time of year. In his new Showtime hour, Have You Heard of Christmas?, comedian Matt Rogers, dressed in a metallic tuxedo, stands onstage at Joe's Pub to deliver his own interpretation of the holiday's central message. "Every year, Santa knows just what to say/When all of the elves claim the bag's way too tight/And maybe we shouldn't do this tonight," he sings, his lips curling with naughty pleasure. "Nobody asks why Santa has so much lube," he continues, nearly bent in half, eyes closed. It's among the first of Rogers's original songs in the special, and like most of his numbers, it's sung with the intense sincerity of a starlet who knows her entire cultural worth is tied up in her sex appeal. In the opening number, a more upbeat banger, each verse is an ever-more-explicit description of hooking up with someone: "Intoxicate/Alleviate/I want to feel you from inside." And then comes the chorus, delivered with an arm flourish and a twirl: "Also it's Christmas! Did I mention that it's Christmas in this club?"

Christmas and comedy are fond bedfellows-much like many of the people Rogers sings about here-but the most familiar versions of Christmas comedy treat the holiday as a situation. There's the National Lampoon version, in which Christmas becomes the backdrop for family shenanigans and frantic last-minute shopping, travel, romance, secrets, and elaborate showcases that need to be pulled off or else everything is ruined. There's also Awkward Comedy Christmas (gifting cringe), Capitalism Commentary Christmas (shopping, but make it satire), Sketch-Comedy Christmas (if Netflix doesn't make an I Think You Should Leave holiday special, the executives are bigger idiots than I thought), and of course Christmas Myths Are Real (Santa exists, and that is funny).