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Memories of a 'Star Wars' Christmas

Darren Hayes, half of the duo that made up the late '90s band Savage Garden, offers up a video Christmas card for fans. It's a simple story of a poor mother's efforts to buy her son the toys he dreamed of having.

Edward Moyer Senior Editor
Edward Moyer is a senior editor at CNET and a many-year veteran of the writing and editing world. He enjoys taking sentences apart and putting them back together. He also likes making them from scratch. ¶ For nearly a quarter of a century, he's edited and written stories about various aspects of the technology world, from the US National Security Agency's controversial spying techniques to historic NASA space missions to 3D-printed works of fine art. Before that, he wrote about movies, musicians, artists and subcultures.
Credentials
  • Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.
Edward Moyer
2 min read
 
Darren Hayes. Screenshot by CNET

It's easy to get a little jaded about the holidays.

If you're like me, you can't help but cringe when you hear that first strain of Christmas music wafting out of the speakers at your local drugstore in early November. ("Here we go again," you think.)

By the time Christmas Eve rolls around, you've battled crowds to grab your gifts and been bludgeoned with the latest Christmas cover tunes and advertising tie-ins. At this point, it's tempting to write it all off as nothing but an empty tradition or a moneymaking gimmick.

If you're lucky, though, you somehow manage to stumble on a Christmas story that hands you the holiday anew and makes the "spirit of giving" and "peace on Earth" more than mere platitudes.

Here's a simply produced video from Darren Hayes, half of the duo that made up the late '90s band Savage Garden (and a solo performer in his own right).

Maybe it's the unabashed and unpretentious presentation. Maybe it's because I remember "Star Wars" figurines and toy catalogs so well. I myself was a child in 1977 when the film first came out. Maybe, too, it has to do with the fact that I lost my mother not so very long ago and that Hayes' film reminds me of her sweetness and sacrifices.

Whatever it is, I was moved and unhumbugged by Hayes' modest offering. I thought some of you might be too. Sure, I could view this as yet another piece of Christmas-themed marketing, but I choose not to Scrooge around with that frame of mind.

In a statement to fans on his Web site, Hayes says the film "comes from the heart." It feels that way to me.

Here's his simple little tale. It's a sweet one. Enjoy.

(Via Laughing Squid)