One of the most amazing aspects of the
Christmas season is the music. There are so many Christmas carols, it’s hard
even to count them all. If you took all the music associated with the other 47
holidays on the calendar — including National Doughnut Day and Take Your
Goldfish to Work Day — and added them all up, the total number of songs
wouldn’t even come close to the number of Christmas carols recorded by Andy
Williams alone during 1966.
It’s no contest. All of our other
holidays combined have, at most, 100 different songs (and that’s if we include
everything John Philip Sousa ever wrote under the category “Fourth of July”).
Christmas has literally thousands of
different songs, with new ones coming out each year. Maybe that’s why retail
stores blare Christmas carols over the PA system beginning on November 1st.
They need two full months to play every song. No, that can’t be right. I was in
Target the other day for only 30 minutes, but I heard my favorite religious
carol, “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” at least four times. I guess some
stores like to repeat the really heart-warming holiday songs.
Adding to this glut of Christmas tunes
is the fact every single person in the music industry—including every studio
engineer and every record company parking lot attendant—feels compelled to
release a Christmas album. Is there anything more poignant than hearing Lady
Gaga screech out her version of “Away in a Manger,” or Kanye West’s special
hip-hop interpretation of “We Three Dogs of Orient Be”? (First verse: “We three
dogs of Orient be / Bearing bling to give to J.C.”)
To be serious for just a moment, which
is very difficult for me to do, there are some secular Christmas songs that are
very poignant and nostalgic, such as “White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for
Christmas.” Here are a couple of fun facts, brought to us by those know-it-alls
at Google: the lyrics for “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” were written by Kim
Gannon during World War II, and sung from the point of view of a soldier far
from home. Record companies rejected the song as too gloomy, but Gannon had a
chance to sing it for Bing Crosby, who decided to record it. The song ended up
being the flip side of Crosby’s “White Christmas” record. (How’d you like to
own an original copy of that vinyl disk?) It became Bing’s fifth gold record,
and by December of 1944 the song was the most requested number by military
personnel at USO shows.
On the other hand, there are some
downright awful secular Christmas songs. “Santa Baby” and the Grandma-Reindeer number
come to mind. (In case you couldn’t tell, I was kidding earlier when I said
that one is my favorite religious carol.)
However, as people of faith, despite
the popularity of many secular Christmas songs, this is our golden opportunity
to play overtly religious carols. We all know those angry folks at the Freedom
From Happiness Foundation (or whatever it’s called) are working overtime to
remove religious Christmas carols from school concerts. But there’s nothing
stopping us from playing that music in our homes, in our cars, or on our
computers at work.
And if, like me, you consider Bing
Crosby to be the Voice of Christmas, Der Bingle recorded some terrific
classics, such as “Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” and “Adeste Fideles” (O
Come All Ye Faithful).
So enjoy this amazing time of year
with so many incredible and memorable musical choices. But try to emphasize the
tunes that proclaim the true meaning of this season: Christ is born!
And definitely try to include my all-time
favorite Christmas carol, the one that brings a tear to my eye every time: “O
Holy Night” by Andy Williams. It doesn’t get any better than that.
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