It may be just that I’m getting older, but I’ve been really enjoying Saturday Night Live this year. And, more importantly, I’ve been thoroughly and utterly charmed by the guest hosts these last two episodes. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Blake Lively, despite being awfully young and apparently very successful, seem so earnest and hard-working and also just so genuinely pleased to be hosting. They both totally won me over.

Mr. Gordon-Levitt’s take on Donald O’Connor’s Make ‘Em Laugh was a terrific homage. And Blake Lively (despite being distractingly attractive: she makes me feel kinda like Norm McDonald’s impression of Larry King: “Blake Lively? She should be called Blake Lovely!”) had her own charming musical number monologue, this time with various cast members as Muppets. There was snow and singing and general merriment. And who knew Jason Sudeikis could be such an amazing Fozzy?

One minor quibble, though. They sang Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, but, weirdly, removed all the God and Jesus references. So, instead of:

Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’ angelic host proclaim
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King.

We got:

Hark the herald angels sing
[Animal sings grunts instead of lyrics]
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
[Swedish Chef sings smorgadyborgady gibberish]
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’ angelic host proclaim
[Beaker sings gibberish meep meep beep]

[skipped line]
[all sing smorgadyborgady gibberish]

They cut out Glory to the newborn King and God and sinners reconciled and Christ is born in Bethlehem. Kinda weird, huh? It was otherwise a wonderful performance, both funny and warm at the same time. They either had some sort of weird reverence for the God stuff, so they excised those bits so they wouldn’t have Muppets and the Gossip Girl chick seeming to make a mockery of it, or they just wanted to remove Christ from Christmas, like Bill O’Reilly says they do.

Or maybe I’m making too much of it. Probably.

Still, fun hosts and good episodes. Although I also feel the need to note that Potato Chip at the end of the Blake Lively episode was easily the worst sketch I can remember in all 35 years of the show, ‘cepting the Jean Doumanian years of course.