Ah Christmas music.
You either love it or you hate it.
No points for guessing that I love it, since I am a self-confessed Christmas junkie and festive music is after all the soundtrack to my tinsel-clogged addiction.
But it goes well beyond the fact that it’s Christmas and so I should play the appropriately-themed music.
It has far more to do with the fact that I am very much an emotional being, someone for whom the sense of an event or a season is every bit as important as its physical expression.
I love Christmas music because it feels like Christmas, which may sound like an utterly intangible description to give anything but is nevertheless right on the money.
All I know is that it adds to the sense that I am celebrating Christmas, it feels happy and joyful, lighthearted and festive, and frankly the festive season would be so festive without it.
So here are three Christmas that mean a great deal to me for various reasons with some history on how they came to be and why they are indisputably part of the modern festive music canon.
WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE
Yes this is all about the three wise men who journeyed from afar carrying gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newly born messiah in a humble stable in bethlehem.
While nobody is entirely certain where they actually originated from, they are thought to have been Magi or astrologers who journeyed from “the East”, most likely either Persia (present day Iran) or Chaldea (possibly present day Iraq).
Two verses in Psalms (72:10-aa) even refers to them as “kings” who came to pay homage to Jesus:
10 The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him; the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. 11 All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him. (NIV)
Regardless of who they were exactly and it’s likely this is information lost to the merciless sands of history, the gospel account of Jesus’ birth makes a big deal of their arrival and the fact their willingness to travel such a long distance with such expensive gifts was proof that here was a very important baby indeed.
One thing we do for sure is that the Reverend John Henry Hopkins, Jr., was so moved by their presence in the Christmas story that he wrote a song honouring them in approximately 1857, although it didn’t appear in print till 1863.
While I appreciate it has gone somewhat out of fashion in modern times, and can be a little dirge-like when played incorrectly, it was a carol that I gravitated to for some reason, partly I think because it was one I was made to learn by my piano teacher each year but largely because it sounded regal, epic and, here we go again with the intangibles, very much how Christmas should sound.
HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
If there is a wistful or slightly melancholic air to this classic American Christmas song by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, it’s because it was written for a particularly poignant scene in the 1944 Judy Garland film Meet Me in St Louis.
“The [film producers] said, ‘No, no — it’s a sad scene, but we want sort of an upbeat song, which will make it even sadder if she’s smiling through her tears. Then we wrote the one you know in the movie.” (Hugh Martin in a 1989 NPR interview which you can listen to at npr.org)
In the film, which became one of Judy Garland’s greatest hits, the Smith family is facing a highly disruptive move from their beloved hometown to New York so their banker father can take up a prestigious position there.
While the move makes sound financial and career sense, it devastates the family especially older sisters Rose (Lucille Bremer) and Esther (Judy Garland) both of whom have budding romances in the offing.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is sung by Esther to much younger sister Tootie (Margaret O’Brien) who has stayed up much of Christmas Eve waiting for Santa’s arrival in an attempt to soothe the youngster who is taking the move harder than most.
While it is meant to be an upbeat assurance that a merry Christmas is possible despite all the uncertainty and disruption of the impending move, it occurs in the middle of an emotionally tense scene which culminates with Tootie running out into the snow to destroy the snowmen they have just built.
While many felt the song was a little bleak, I love the wistfulness inherent in the song, which went on to be recorded by the likes of Mel Torme and Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, since life doesn’t always give us what we want, even at Christmas and we have to seek solace where we can.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU
This has been to one of the most energetic, upbeat Christmas songs out there, the sort of tune that will have you up and dancing around the Christmas tree, or at the very least tapping your toes so furiously people will assume you’re high on candy canes.
And yet it is filled with all sorts of longing and desire and even a little melancholy that she might not be with the one she loves at this most together time of the year.
Originally released by Mariah Carey, who co-wrote the song with Walter Afanasieff, in 1993, it was the lead single from her fourth studio album, appropriately titled Merry Christmas, racing to the top of the charts, or near to it, in many of the territories in which it was released.
Nominated by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the few modern Christmas songs worthy of inclusion on its Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs list, it has been covered by everyone from My Chemical Romance to Australian artist Jessica Mauboy, John Mayer to Michael Buble and Lady Antebellum.
It is one of the few songs added to modern Christmas albums that is immediately recognisable and which carries with it that all-important and tangibly elusive “feels like Christmas” tag.
And who can’t relate to wanting to be with the one/s they love the most on Christmas Day, traditionally a time when lovers, and family and friends journey from far and near to be with each other, even if only for a moment.
“All I Want For Christmas is You” is such an iconic and much-loved song because it combines the giddy joy of seeing the one you love with the passionate longing for that much-delayed reunion in an almost perfect union.
It is, quite simply, festive song in a joy and it brings a smile of recognition to my face every time I hear it.