Christmas Music: Love It or Hate It?

Happy (early) Festivus!

Did you know the actual date of Frank Costanza’s¹ Festivus is coming up? That’s right, next Tuesday, December 23rd, is the day.

Join fellow Substacker Jon Murphy and me as we display our feats of strength. On the day of Festivus, I will be posting from Jon’s Substack, and he from mine. Then that Friday, the day after Christmas, we will be doing the reverse. In our posts, we will lay down the Festivus gauntlet to you all.

The winner of this challenge will receive the very first, newly re-branded, SilentPunt t-shirt. Have a look-see:

The SilentPunt design team is still hard at work. This is a prototype.

Don’t worry, we’ll sneak the new logo in someplace small. You’ll be able to proudly wear this for next year’s Festivus celebration.

Maverick and Darla, plus me and Ava recently. If any of you mofos tell her I posted this, you're dead to me.

Christmas Music: Love It or Hate It?

Full disclosure, my answer to the question posed in the title is that I love it unequivocally.

My two favorite Christmas songs are Burl Ives’ Have a Holly Jolly Christmas and Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis. Burl’s iconic song was released in 1964 in conjunction with the release of the film it was featured in, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Christmas in Hollis was released in 1985. Interestingly, it was actually put out on a charity Christmas album designed to raise money for the Special Olympics.

So, why are my two favorite Christmas songs, released 61 and 40 years ago respectively, so old? And why do I, and so many others, love songs like that in the first place?

🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄

If you love Christmas music like me, there must be some deep undercurrent gurgling beneath the surface that we all share. And even if you don’t, there is probably some things about this time of year that you do look forward to.

I started thinking about all of this in part because our daughter loves Christmas music as well. I’m choosing to take that fact as confirmation that I am not a complete and total failure as a dad.

At least not yet. Her future therapy bill may beg to differ.

So, I’ve been making a point of trying to be very in tune with what I feel when Christmas music comes on. In the car, out shopping, or in grocery stores and airports. And the other day in Kwik Trip, as I grabbed a Diet Coke.

Eventually I even heard it in a Mexican restaurant.

But the music in the Mexican restaurant didn’t evoke the same feelings. What were those feelings, and why were they missing there? That’s when I started paying even closer attention.

I started to notice that the songs that elicited the most powerful feelings were the ones I was familiar with. The ones that immediately transported me back to my parents’ living room. Or my grandparents’² kitchen. Because life was simpler then.

Except it wasn’t. For many of us, our teenage years were lonely and confusing, our worlds changing faster than we could keep up with. But I am no longer a teenager. And as much as I may be confused as to the quality of my parenting, I am no longer confused by life.

I know where I’ve been, know where I’d like to go, and understand that the universe will intervene as it deems necessary.

We don’t just want any Christmas songs. We want the ones we remember.

🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄

We also want the same movies. We re-watch the same ones year after year, to the point where we’ve memorized many of the lines. We half-watch while scrolling our phones, knowing exactly when to look up. We don’t need to be surprised by It’s a Wonderful Life or Home Alone.

Surprise isn’t the point.

No one sits down to watch A Christmas Story and wonders if Ralphie is gonna get the rifle. We know he does.

The music in the Mexican restaurant didn’t resonate with me because I have no memories of listening to Mexican music when I was growing up. After all, I’m a descendant of Murphys and Pasquarellas, not of Garcias and Hernandezes.

I also think this is the reason why it’s so hard for current musicians to create new “hit” Christmas songs. Because we don’t want a new one. The new ones don’t help me remember what my Meemom’s ham and cabbage tasted like.

Even if it tasted like shit.

Which it did.

When I hear Burl Ives crooning, I remember the good stuff. I don’t remember the parts where I felt invisible, or scared, or unsure of who I was becoming. I remember the couch. The tree. The quiet stillness that wrapped me in warmth.

Whatever problems were lingering in our worlds all those years ago have long since been resolved. Elections came and went, relationships flourished or crumbled, and puberty was survived.

Whereas the problems of today seem as unanswerable as those problems seemed in their time.

The world today is noisy. The world tomorrow is scary. But the world yesterday, that was safe. Ever unchanging. Or so our minds trick us into believing.

We return to what’s familiar because it reminds us who we were before the noise.

Human beings have always done this. We mark time with rituals. Songs. Stories we tell again and again. Not because they’re accurate, but because they’re stabilizing.

Christmas music is one of those anchors. A reminder that no matter how far we drift…politically, culturally, personally…there is still a melody we recognize. Words we can finish without thinking.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas my friends.

Or whatever season of life you and your family are celebrating ☮️.

🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄 🎅🏻 🎄

1. Apple TV is currently streaming “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.” This is an outstanding documentary of their lives and careers, put together by Ben and his family.

2. These apostrophes don’t seem to be in the correct place, but apparently they are 🤷🏼‍♂️.