Beyond the Sound

It’s December 1st, which is the beginning of my threshold for playing/listening to Christmas music. I do this not due to a dislike for the music, but in order to not come to any distain for the Christmas classics. There are only so many Christmas songs, and they are relatively simple, so listening to them repeatedly gets boring after a while.

It seems like Christmas music starts appearing in advertisements earlier and earlier in the year, this year I saw adverts with the music before Halloween. Christmas is an incredibly consumeristic holiday (Black Friday is traditionally the day retail companies broke even for the year); the advertisements make sense in that aspect.

I’m not a Christian, yet I still celebrate Christmas, albeit as a cultural event more than a religious one. I used the words “Christmas music” instead of “holiday music” because that is how the music is branded. The entire Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas debate is rather silly to me: it doesn’t hurt you to say Happy Holidays and be inclusive. But here I am specifically referring to Christmas music.

Despite Christmas music being used less like a way to connect with others and more like a tool to drive profits, I value it’s ability to create a culturally connectedness when being listened to. There will always be someone who doesn’t like the current modern pop phenomenon (often me), but holiday music is more ubiquitous and arguably some of the most iconic music in America.

Christmas Roses by Claude Monet (1883)