A good holiday song lightens your mood and puts you in the Christmas spirit; a great holiday song turns you into a child again on Christmas morning.
We, the people, have a collective soft spot for cheesy Christmas songs.
I find it hard to pass my Christmas tree without pushing the button on my singing ornament. It’s a snowman laying in a hammock while drinking from a coconut; it plays the opening to Mele Kalikimaka.
Don’t judge me, Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day.
If you need further proof that we all mark out for Christmas songs, just try to find sober people listening to Paul McCartney play the synthesizer outside of the holiday season. It will never happen.
Nostalgia runs strong around Christmas. The songs that most resonate with us are the ones that were popular when we were kids. You’ll also never find a sober adult excited to hear a Chipmunks song that doesn’t include hoola hoops.
Each of us
Similarly, my Dad DVRs the yuletide log broadcast every year. He repeatedly rewinds to hear Little Drummer Boy, which is not… normal.
And my wife Jenny is nearly moved to tears by The Christmas Shoes, a song about a gypsy child tricking some rich dude into buying him shoes. I’ve been told it’s a “southern church thing” from her elementary school years that I’ll never understand.
But I think I do because the words “candles in the window” had me “feeling that gingerbread feeling” when we sang the Home Alone song in our fifth grade chorus.
I was indoctrinated early with a combination of caroling, cocoa, and gift-deserving anxiety that forever locked the three together in my psyche. The first Christmas songs I learned were mere character introductions for Santa, Rudolph
The messaging quickly shifted to
To this day, I feel a pang of compassion for anyone I see grumping in mid-to-late December. I worry about what consequences their behavior will have for them on Christmas morning.
These threats were graphically reinforced as my childhood progressed. The song Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer engages in a shocking amount of victim-shaming and includes no real call for justice. It’s terrifying to know that nobody is watching the watchman.
Because Christmas song preferences are heavily rooted in nostalgia, my childhood songs were largely defined by the 1950s-era songs my mother grew up with, which I respect as classics, even though most of them suck.
Elvis’ Blue Christmas is fantastic, but what remains of his audience is rapidly dying. His official video has 460 million less views on YouTube than Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You.
I have a healthy appreciation for Nat King Cole’s chestnuts, but his songs will never elicit the same sort of hee-hawing response from me as hearing Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey. The best Christmas songs are fun.
That’s why I actively seek fun Christmas song renditions throughout the season. The only thing better than discovering a Toby Keith Christmas album is discovering a Toby Keith Christmas double-album, which I found last year on Spotify.
It was recorded in 2007, which was Toby Keith’s heyday, meaning it featured tracks far more serious than his mostly-for-fun 1995 album, which had great tracks
I’ve always felt that Frosty the Snowman is best performed with an Oklahoma twang. Sales of Toby’s double-album suggest that the American people do not agree (it ended his five-consecutive-platinum-album streak).
In such a cheesy medium, it’s hard to tell which songs will resonate and which will get burned atop history’s yule tide flame. I tip my cap to any artist who aims their skills at bringing more happiness to this magical time of year.
Even when those efforts only seem to be made possible by the continued legalization of marijuana, like this year’s oddest album: Shatner Claus.
If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.
If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.
You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].