A Measure of Modern Christmas
It’s 6 weeks until Christmas Eve. And no, I’m not playing Christmas music yet. I’ll save that until December.
Music is perhaps one of the best measures of what Christmas has become in our world today. I think it was last year when I heard about a poll that ambitiously tried to identify the greatest Christmas song of all time. Of all time!
I’m not sure what the specific poll was, but I did a little searching and found a few similar polls, with similar results. And I ask you – what in the world has happened to Christmas?
The greatest Christmas song of all time – all time.
So let me give you the general categories of the top 10, without naming them all. You can imagine.
First, the collection of “general Christmas atmosphere” songs. Bells a-ringing, snow a’falling, time with loved ones. I like these kinds of songs actually, but the most popular seem to be the most shallow of the shallow – painfully so. No meaning behind any of the bells and lights at all – not even fondness for family.
Next, the typical “peace on earth” songs. Feed the children, stop the war. These, sadly, came the closest to anything related to the Bible. The closest in the whole list is the haunting “The Little Drummer Boy (Peace On Earth)” sung by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Nothing biblical, just the legendary drummer boy. The song longs for peace, but can’t quite find the answer.
But that doesn’t bring us to the three that are arguably the most popular. Of course you have to have the obligatory love song – “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. But from there you descend to the top of the list, where the songs are skeptical, and generally outright immoral.
Sad, shallow, immoral – a Christmas without meaning has become a Christmas that stabs like a knife. Welcome to the top 10 Christmas songs – of all time.
Christmas has its roots in the interest that the very first Christians had of Jesus’ birth. The high language of John, and the specifics of Matthew and Luke. The meaning of this story transcended cultures and inspired art and music and transformed lives for centuries.
So I started thinking – what would I consider to be the greatest Christmas song of all time? Not necessarily my favourite – but truly the greatest?
There are lots to choose from (and non are in the top 10 lists).
I finally came up with my pick. So between now and Christmas Eve, I’d like to pull it out and talk about it in detail. And maybe try to get some of these other songs out of my head.
And maybe we can find the answer to the question Bowie at least asked – Peace on earth, can it be?
17 November 2018 @ 10:01 am
Wikipedia’s biography of singer Bing Crosby notes that White Christmas (“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…â€), which he introduced on the radio, on Christmas Day of 1941, was “the biggest hit song of Crosby’s career.†It is, indeed, a lovely song. And given that war was raging in Europe at the time, and America was soon to enter the conflict, nostalgia for home and family was very popular. White Christmas joins a number of heartwarming selections, and fun and fantasy numbers, we love to sing. But if we truly believe, as I do, that “Jesus is the reason for the season,†then our sacred carols about His coming should take first place.
17 November 2018 @ 10:07 am
A quick P.S. to my last comment. In the opinion of many hymn historians, Charles Wesley’s Hark, the Herald Angels Sing is not only a great carol, but one of the highest rated hymns in the English language. Also very highly ranked is James Montgomery’s Angels from the Realms of Glory. Both of these must be, in my view, a regular part of any Christmas repertoire.
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