If by Christmas music you mean Handel’s Messiah or other classical works (ie, music composed and performed by actual musicians), I range anywhere from “eh, it’s okay” to “I love this so much”. If you’re talking about the crap you hear on the radio (ie, the aural equivalent of toxic waste pumped out en masse every year by record labels in it for the money rather than the art), I cannot stand it. But that has nothing to do with the Christmassy-ness of it - in fact, the classical stuff tends to be pretty Jesus-centric, while the pop stuff is “tra la la snowmen and penguins something jesus something isn’t winter lovely?”
Thank you for posting this. I, too, was raised Jewish. Christmas is not my holiday. I don’t care if you celebrate it or not, but please stop assuming that I do.
And I’m not even going to start on the “well it’s a secular holiday” bullshit, because here’s a hint: it’s not.
I hate snow, and i’m a little revolted whenever I hear Christmas Music played before thanksgiving… I’d rather smell that baked apple perfume that’s super-festive.
I heard Christmas Music at the small supermarket up the road where i run in for bread and ice… this is the market i can get to on my bicycle or the place we hit for milk and bagels before getting home on the 19th of November.
I don’t mind Christmas music as long as it’s not one of those modern Country Christmas songs.
Mostly I just tune it out though. It doesn’t make me feel anything but mild annoyance.
I’m not really what you’re looking for here, but I thought my perspective might still be interesting. I am a Christian, but I don’t celebrate Christmas. My feelings about certain Christmas songs varies. For instance, I’m not particularly fond of Santa songs. Other Christmas songs that are just about the story of the nativity and not necessarily tying it to the celebration of Christmas (eg, Silent Night, Hark the Harold, What Child is This, etc.) I’m fine with, in fact, I quite like several of them. Some songs are in the middle, where they aren’t explicitly about Christmas, but about winter or snow or whatever and get clumped in with the rest; I’m largely indifferent about those.
So, that all said, even the songs I don’t really care for don’t bother me any more than any of a million other songs I might hear throughout a given day. The real difference is that, unlike random pop songs that I don’t recognize, I do recognize the Christmas ones, so the overplayed factor builds up a lot faster. Moreso, pop songs are popular for a period of time then, in most cases, fade into obscurity, whereas much of the Christmas music today is stuff I’ve heard every year for as long as I can remember. So, the only real objection I have to Christmas music is how overplayed it is.
Fortunately, since I don’t celebrate Christmas, my only real exposure to Christmas music is for normal routine shopping, like at the grocery store, since I avoid any other type of shopping as much as possible since I hate the crowds. As such, I barely notice the music as it is.
I am an atheist. My favorite times of year tend to be Christmas an Easter on account of the top-notch early music performances. Ordinarily my wife and I would be taking in a concert a week but for our baby.
This is the kind of Christmas music I can really get behind. ThePlebs Dominiat the end is especially wonderful, matched perhaps only by the Domenica Palmarum. For something more contemporary, I love Greg Lake’s I believe in father christmas and the inimitable Santa claus give is your money by Anal Cunt. Jethro Tull reminds us that the Christmas spirit is not what we drink in Christmas Song. All well worth listening to.
I agree with this. I sort of like the pre-1850 music-- I also like early music in general, though, aesthetically and historically. I am ambivalent at best on the pop Christmas music of the 20th century. What I despise is going anywhere in public in November or December and getting “Let it Snow” stuck in my head again. I say PLEASE DO remember the reason for the season, keep the Christ in Christmas and all of that, heartily. In other words, decommercialize that shit and I’ll be perfectly happy to let ya’ll do your religious thing. I don’t hate your deity, I just don’t care. I sure don’t want to hear the music while I’m at the liquor store, though, and I don’t want to do secret Santas, or spend a lot of money because it’s my capitalist duty. I’m perfectly happy to munch on fudge and watch Rankin and Bass claymation on TV and hear someone sing about Jesus again, but the whole hypermarketing aspect is right out.
Just thought I’d add a bit…the apartment complex where i used to live: there was a jewish guy there (don’t know if he was practicing or not) who used to play the piano, while some of us got together for singing old Christmas carols.
He just enjoyed getting together for music /singing-and he played very well.
Every year, we have to go through the evil that is Christmas. And every year, I get pissed off beyond belief because you can’t get away from the Christmas music. It’s on the radio, it’s on the mall speakers, it’s on the TV.
Not only do I like (some) Christmas songs, I like (some) Christian music. Petra’s “Grave Robber” is wonderful, even though every word in it is a destructive lie except for four of the prepositions.
I hate how people assume atheists are all militantly anti religious. I’ve heard Christmas songs since I was little, its part of the tradition. I am compelled to type a wall of angry text attacking conservative religious people, but this isn’t the pit and it’s probably because I’m in a bad mood anyway.
I’ve posted about my dislike of Christmas music before, but I’ve figured out why I hate it so much.
It’s because I’m most likely to hear it where I can’t control it, and where I can’t always leave. If I’m in the car and hear a Christmas carol, I can change the station or turn the radio off. On the other hand, if I’m at a mall or supermarket or restaurant, I can’t do any of those things, and that’s where I dislike it the most.
I’m an atheist but I was brought up Christian. There are some Christmas songs that I love. Such as O Holy Night sung by someone who can really hit that high note hard (Placido Domingo makes Josh Groban sound like a pantywaist). In high school we did a version of Little Drummer Boy that I really liked. And, though it is not really a carol but it gets more airplay around this time of year, I like Ave Maria.
I think the main issue with Christmas music is the lack of variety. It seems everyone tries to do the their version of some Christmas classic, but it’s still the same old song. You could probably pick up 5 or 6 Christmas CDs and most of them will have the same songs on them done by different artists. Or, depending on the type of CDs you pick up, they could have the same songs by the same artists in a different order. If there have been any new Christmas songs written in the past 30 years, you could probably count them on your fingers.
Though I do understand the quality issue as well. I’ve probably heard Hendrix’s Little Wing more often in my life than I’ve heard Brenda Lee singing Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, but I still love Little Wing. The problem is that Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree is more like Sugar Sugar by the Archies than Little Wing.
But that can be a result of the lack of variety. With the number of pop and rock songs released in the past 55 years (1955 - 2010), probability suggests that some of them will be quite good. Even though we’ve had 2000 years to come up with them, the sample size of Christmas songs is quite small, suggesting fewer gems amongst the chaff.
Hello fellow atheist Petra fan. I think we are a club of two…
I only really like Christmas music when I’m singing it. I haven’t been in a choir since I moved away, which was eight years ago. I still warm up my ‘Oh Holy Night’ every year and subject the family to it - I have the music anyway and it was always my solo. I find as I have gotten older I’ve had to come down a step, though. Boo, heading for alto!
Can’t stand it on the radio, in the shopping centers, or anywhere else, blech. Unless I’m at a choral performance, or my son’s cantor group performance.