That doesn't mean I don't believe in celebrating--in fact I'll take any chance to celebrate anything--but my character Ruby and her friends are not exactly traditional people. So if they did want to do Christmas, it would have to be more off center and definitely hipster style.
If I have to imagine a Beat Generation Christmas, it would be going out to hear jazz or a poetry reading or gathering with friends to create jazz and read poems (some written by Ruby, of course).
No big dinners, but my menu of hipster snacks might include chips and salsa, cold gazpacho soup, crackers with olive tapenade, raisins and almonds with dark-chocolate chips, black teas, Irish coffees, incense instead of mistletoe (though maybe they'd have mistletoe), beer, burgundy and cognac--but no egg nog, please.
No Christmas carols, but songs, definitely, yes, and they'd have to be much jazzier than the typical songs we mostly hear. My list has old songs for Ruby's 1950s life, but not all the recordings are made in the 1950s. I listed them here with my favorite performers for each song and gave you one each for the 12 days of Christmas.
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus - Mabel Scott
Cool Yule - Louis Armstrong
Dig That Crazy Santa Claus - Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers
Five Pound Box of Money - Pearl Bailey
Good Morning Blues (I Want to See Santa Claus) - Count Basie
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Amy Winehouse
Merry Christmas, Baby - Lionel Hampton
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
Santa Done Got Hip - the Marquees
Sugar Rum Cherry - Duke Ellington
What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin') - Louis Prima
Download some of these for your Christmas - and let me know your favorites, too?
Hipster Santa: Thunderchild7
Jazz Christmas photo: Roberto Cacho Toca
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