“Christmas has always been this way” is the sentiment for most people.  It’s not only the Christmas holiday itself that people cherish, but also the season and its traditions that are precious and special.  We tend to treasure the holiday practices that we first experienced as children, believing Christmas should always be celebrated in that way.

The carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, is an oblique reference to the way Christmas used to be celebrated.  The season began on December 25th and ran for twelve days until January 6th, the Day of Epiphany.  That twelve day celebration period was officially declared in 567 by the Council of Tours.  Incidentally, that was the same church council that said any priest found in bed with his own wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to laity status.  Celibacy for priests wasn’t yet an absolute requirement in the Catholic Church at that time.  The inviolate celibacy condition for Catholic priests (preferably virgin status, just like Mother Mary) was declared by  the Council of Trent in the mid 1500’s.

The very first Christmas carol was probably Angel’s Hymn that was sung in Rome in the year 129.  Originally, Christmas carols were first composed by clergy for clergy and were sung by priests in praise to the Lord during Advent in front of congregations but without the laity joining in song.  People think of Silent Night as an “ancient “Christmas carol.  It is old, but not ancient.  The song was composed in 1818 and was first performed accompanied by a guitar because the cathedral’s organ had been damaged by flooding.  Silent Night remains one of the most popular Christmas carols all across the world.

The song Here We Come A Caroling,  that we sometimes sing today, had different lyrics back in the day and was originally known as Here We Come A Wassailing.  Wassailing was the practice of carrying a punch bowl filled with your favorite adult beverage as people wandered the town offering toasts to their neighbors and asking for food and drink as wassailers went door to door caroling and reveling.  This Christmas practice was sort of an adult “trick or treat” experience.  Christmas caroling has kind of gone out of style, but it used to be an American tradition for people to go door to door singing Christmas songs and, in return, to then be invited into a home for a drink of some kind and a snack or for the carolers to receive a gift for charity before moving on.  By the end of the 1600’s, Deck the Halls, the First Noel, God Rest You Merry Gentlemen and We Wish You A Merry Christmas were all standards of the Christmas season.

Billboard Magazine, the outfit that provides the listing of the hit songs that grace the weekend radio countdown shows, has ranked the greatest charting Christmas songs of all time.  They are:

  1. White Christmas by Bing Crosby – this song is the best-selling single of all time with Bing Crosby’s version alone selling 50 million copies, so why is he #10? It’s because this ranking is based on the number of weeks a song was on the Billboard Charts and not necessarily on the total sales of the song.
  2. Let It Snow, Let It Snow by Dean Martin
  3. Last Christmas by Wham
  4. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Andy Williams – the song was written for a Christmas episode of the Andy Williams show back in 1963. At the time, Williams  and George Wyle (who was the music producer for the show and coauthor of the song) thought it was just another throwaway tune for the show,  one and done.  The song had legs and is now a perennial seasonal favorite.
  5. Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano – this nineteen word song was recorded in ten minutes in 1970 by Feliciano in Los Angeles while he was homesick for his relatives in New York and who he could not be with for Christmas. It was a verbal Christmas card and one of those, “I don’t care if it sells, I’m doing it for my family” songs.  It is one of the most streamed holiday songs today and a Christmas radio classic.
  6. A Holly Jolly Christmas by Burl Ives from the 1964 stop motion television special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer created by Rankin/Bass Productions.
  7. The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole, he first recorded the song in 1946 with the Nat King Cole Trio, then as a solo act in 1953 and then rerecorded the song solo again in 1963. It is the 1963 version that is considered the iconic version and the one that is played on the radio and appears on Christmas albums.
  8. Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms
  9. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee
  10. All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey.

There is a debate about when Christmas carols should first be aired on the radio and appear as background music in retail stores.  One school of thought is that this music puts people in the mood to buy, so the earlier Christmas songs are trotted out the better.  The other school of thought is that every holiday should have its day so once school starts there is Labor Day, Columbus Day (as it’s known by most of the country – it’s Native American Day here in South Dakota and Indigenous Peoples’ Day in some other states), Veteran’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and once Thanksgiving is over that’s the time to break out the Christmas Carols.  I confess, I’m an “after Thanksgiving” guy myself.

Whatever camp of when to play the Christmas music you’re in, it’s certainly time by now for Christmas music.  While you’re considering which gifts to purchase for placing under the tree, be sure to check out local retailers.  We celebrate at Christmas but without our local retailers and their tax base, employment opportunities, payroll providing many of us a with a living, these small business owners  volunteer in local organizations as well as provide a source of contributions to events and charities there just wouldn’t be much to celebrate the rest of the year.

 

Merry Christmas!