Cue the Christmas Music!

It’s the Christmas season.  Well, technically, it’s the Advent season.  A lot of my pastor friends, who go by the liturgical calendar, would say that it’s Advent until Christmas Day, and that the Christmas season comes after that, up until Epiphany.  And technically, from a liturgical standpoint, they’re right.  But the rest of the world says it’s the Christmas season, and I don’t see much point in arguing with the world about it.

And besides, if I call it the Christmas season, then I can start listening to (and singing along with) Christmas carols.  That’s one of the aspects of the Christmas season I like the most.  I love singing the old carols.  They don’t necessarily have to be religious—I love “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night”, but I also love “Jingle Bells” and “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”.  I even enjoy some of the novelty Christmas songs, like “Christmas on Christmas Island” and “Oh I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas”.  There are a few Christmas songs I don’t care for, but not that many.  For the most part, Christmas songs carry a message of love and peace and hope, and how can we not want to hear that message?

The other thing Christmas songs do is evoke memories.  All music does that, really, but Christmas music especially does.  I can remember singing some of these carols at Christmas programs when I was a kid.  I can remember singing them at any number of candlelight services. I can remember we had my grandmother’s funeral the day of Christmas Eve and how that night, wanting to make everyone feel better, I sat down at the piano and played some Christmas songs.   I can even remember a Christmas Eve when I was alone, and I sat down at the piano with the hymnal and played and sang every Christmas song in it, including some I didn’t know, and how much better it made me feel.

Christmas music, and really all music, is a gift from God.  Like all gifts God gives us, it can be misused.  People can send terrible messages through music, and sometimes they do.  But people can also send wonderful messages through music, and most of the time that is what we do.  And the message of Christmas is about as good a message to send through music as there can possibly be.

So I hope you’ll enjoy some Christmas music this year.  Start playing it now, and keep playing it through Christmas and through New Year’s.  Heck, play it through Valentine’s Day and beyond if you want to.  Why not?  The message of Christmas does not end on Christmas Day.  There’s no reason the music of Christmas has to end then, either.

But whenever you start it, and whenever you end it, enjoy the music of Christmas.  Even more, though, take to heart the message of Christmas.  “Christ, the Savior, is born.”  “Let heaven and nature sing!”