At this time of year, thoughts turn to holiday playlists, and the essential songs that have to make it on to every single one. (I shared mine earlier this week.) I had a thought the other day bemoaning the lack of good new Christmas songs, before I realized two things simultaneously:
- I am old, and therefore almost destined to find so much of “new” music to be boring, dull, or just simply not my bag, daddio.
- More than arguably any other music genre, the appeal of Christmas music is that it’s nostalgic and pulls you back to simpler, earlier times in your life. So finding “new” Christmas songs that appeal to you as much as songs you grew up with it… difficult, to say the least. (Which is to say, sorry Sabrina Carpenter and your Nonsense Christmas Song.)
That last one is something I should have realized sooner, because it’s a lesson I learned when I was a kid myself. There were many Christmas traditions in my house growing up, which is almost certainly why I’m such a holiday fiend to this day. One of the major ones, though, was that when we did the decorations for the living room and the rest of the house, we would listen to Christmas music, and if at all possible, that would start with the music my mother grew up listening to at that time of year — which is to say, Nat King Cole’s Christmas album.
I say, “if at all possible,” because there was a period where the album was gone for some reason. Maybe it was destroyed, or misplaced? I don’t remember what happened to it, but I do remember that a replacement was eventually purchased after a couple of years, and it was clear the difference it made in her experience just hearing him sing “The Christmas Song” again. It was what completed the whole thing for her; without that song, it wasn’t really Christmas.
I’m the same. Not just with “The Christmas Song” (I learned from the best, and was taught at a young age), but with “Merry Xmas Everybody” and “I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday” and at least half of the Phil Spector Christmas album. That’s not to say that new songs can’t be added to that must-listen list, because they can — things like Low’s “Just Like Christmas,” The Blind Boys of Alabama’s “Last Month of the Year” and The Executor’s “Christmas is a Joyful Day” have all achieved that goal since I was a kid — but the core songs, those ones that get played the most and induce the strongest festive feelings… all of them come from way back, and remind me of the wonder that you feel most strongly when things were simpler, happier, and I didn’t have to worry about taking time off work in order to celebrate everything appropriately.