Christmas Songs Can Be Bossy

Christmas songs can be bossy.

I am not in the mood.

I will not be sad if I never hear “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” again. Ever. Or “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Please, just no. Also, one of my friends told me about a song by Meghan Trainor, “Christmas Coupon.” If you have not heard it, I think you are lucky.

How you feel about the start of the Christmas music season might have something to do with how your Thanksgiving went. If you had a happy one, one of the best ever? Then you might be jolly when you hear those first Christmas tunes piped into the speakers at the supermarket or Target (which, by the way, was very busy today. I had to run in to pick up a prescription).

But if it was a rough holiday, or if you lean toward sometimes being a little depressed anyway, or if the season started out rotten: maybe your children are rude and are out living their wonderful lives in another country, or they are away at school and won’t be home for a few weeks, or if the folks you hoped to spend Thanksgiving with all got Covid so you ended up eating a microwavable turkey dinner alone?  It’s not surprising then that some Christmas songs are annoying you and you don’t feel like getting the Christmas tree out of the shed or climbing up the ladder to get the boxes of ornaments down from up high where they are stored. This is a dangerous task anyway, because if you do it without help, without a spotter, you are likely to drop the whole container on the floor from the overhead storage area and break all the precious ornaments inside and also possibly your neck.

I got my hair done this week, and my sweet hairdresser had Christmas music playing. It made her happy. It did not make me happy. That Paul McCartney and Wings song, “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time.” Except I am not! Or “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.” I’d like to, but the month isn’t starting out that way. And then there are those songs that I never need to hear again that I already told you about. The bossiest song of all? “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town?”  So many direct commands! You better not pout, shout or cry.

I disagree. I disagree very much.

I think a good cry is always appropriate and helpful, especially one that comes at this time of year. One of my good friends, a spiritual director, recommends that every family set aside time in December for a Christmas fight and a Christmas cry. We can cry for all our losses: big and small. For the people we’ve lost. Also, God help us, for the fact that we are now days away from 2024, an election year. I pray that we are not all doomed.

So I am missing my people, and my heart is a little sad, and Thanksgiving was fine. There were French fries and iced tea with a friend and a 5k run and a hot bath and a good book. It was fine! But Christmas is coming, just a few weeks away, and good sweet Jesus, what is wrong with me that I have such a terrible attitude about not only the Christmas music but also all these Days of the Week sales that have become a staple of the holiday season: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday? All on the heels of Thanksgiving? It makes for quite a week.

It’s a good time to remember the Christmas music that I love. Because there is a lot that I love. Old hymns, mostly. “O Holy Night,” “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “Joy to the World,” and the “First Noel.”  No mention of Santa or needing to be jolly or having a wonderful Christmas time or snow or mistletoe or presents or Grandma or reindeer or coupons in any of those. Those songs have angels and wise men, sheep and shepherds, and a newborn named Jesus. There’s an old magic in them. And Jesus, the one whose birth is ostensibly the reason for all this Christmas hubbub in the first place? I don’t think he minds at all that I’m not always jolly at Christmas time. I’m not sure he’d be jolly either if he came down and tried to make his way through the mall and holiday traffic this week. Which makes me feel a little better and slightly less grumpy and like maybe I could even go out to the shed tomorrow to bring in my Christmas tree and a box or two of decorations. (If I can do so very carefully. Because it is important not to break the ornaments. Or my neck.)

(P. S. I also love Carly Simon’s version of “the Night Before Christmas.” I first heard it at the end of one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, “Mixed Nuts.” This might be a strange place to insert a movie recommendation, but if you haven’t seen “Mixed Nuts” with Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, a young Adam Sandler and Madeline Kahn? It’s worth renting. And if you do? Be sure to let me know what you think, especially if you loved it. If you didn’t? That’s OK.)