Let’s see:
“Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…
This year…I’ll give it to someone special”
It seems like it’s one year later, so it’s X-mas again. A little more than just one line, it’s the whole setting (seen the vid?)
I must admit, all your Borealist non-Christ Xmas songs fall a little flat down South.
Movements of two of Bach’s cantatas are sometimes associated with Christmas, to the extent of being included in Christmas albums:
“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” is from BWV 147 “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben.” Like Handel’s Hallelujah chorus, it is at least about Jesus, but not about the nativity.
“Sheep may safely graze” is from BWV 208 “Was mir behagt is nur die muntre Jagd.” It’s a secular cantata, about hunting of all things.
Home for the holidays,
I believe I’ve missed each and every face,
Come on and play my music,
Let’s turn on every love light in the place
Here in the UK, a song by Jona Lewie called ‘Stop The Cavalry’ is routinely played to death every christmas and features prominently on every ‘christmassy’ compilation. It was a hit single around christmas time in 1980, reaching 3 in the singles charts. The song has nothing, absotively posilutely nothing to do with christmas, as Jona himself (who wrote the song) has confirmed many times. However, it does contain the word ‘christmas’, and it seems this is sufficient to have given the song christmassy immortality. It may also help that it’s a very catchy song with that ‘drills itself straight into the brain’ quality so essential for chart success.
We Need A Little Christmas – the point of the song is that it’s not Christmas (but we need it to be).
The video is irrelevant; we’re talking about the song itself.
Moreover, Christmas is only mentioned in one line, and only because it’s allows one to mention gift-giving. They could have just as easily said, “On your last birthday, I gave you my heart.” The theme of the song would have been exactly the same.
My point remains. Christmas is mentioned, but only in one line, and only tangentially at best.
“Song for a Winter’s Night” by Sarah McLachan. It barely mentions winter, and doesn’t mention Christmas at all. I love it, though, because it’s moody and beautiful and so unlike anything else played on the radio during the holidays.
I dare say Emerson, Lake and Palmers “I Believe in Father Christmas”. It may sound like a Christmas tune when it is on in the background, but don’t try to sing along with it and find yourself filled with the Christmas spirit…
At best I would call it cynical, at worst, atheist.
How about a song that mentions Christmas but not about Christmas?
Such as St. Etienne’s I was Born on Christmas Day.
Ms. McLachlan’s version of the song is ethereal – simply gorgeous. Gordon Lightfoot’s version of the song he wrote is beautiful in its own way – folkier, of course, but still a wonderful listen. He wrote it on a rainy night in Cleveland, apparently, with no thoughts of Christmas at all, and it too was the first song I thought of in response to the OP.
It’s not the whole rosary, it’s the Hail Mary.
That’s a bit like saying that the Gloria is simply the Mass in Latin. It’s only a piece of it.
True, but considering what they named the song, and the fact that it has jingle bells jangling throughout, I think it was MEANT to be a Christmas song. This is a little different from, say, “My Favorite Things,” which was not written as a Christmas song, or have anything to do with Christmas whatsoever in its original context.
I never got “My Favorite Things” as a Christmas song, either.
“The Prayer” by Josh Groban & Charlotte Church (or, if you prefer, Andrea Boccelli and Celine Dion :rolleyes: ).
Nothing Christmas-y about it, except its platitudes about everyone having someone to love, peace on earth, etc.
Yet it’s played on at least two stations around here that do all-Christmas formats this time of year.
I didn’t even know that was a Gordon Lightfoot song. Thanks for making me a better-informed Canadian! 
Ah, good point-you’re right, it’s the “Hail Mary” in Latin.
Feel free to whap my knuckles with a ruler.
I have a set of Christmas music CDs that includes “The Bells of Saint Mary’s”.
Now, admittedly, I’ve never seen the movie of the same name. Maybe the movie has some Christmassy association that I’m missing? (The IMDB page for the movie doesn’t hint at any, nor does my mother, family expert on movie musicals, recall any Yuletide connections.) But the only seasonal reference in the song itself is distinctly autumnal:
Falling red leaves don’t really put me in a Christmas mood. Your mileage may vary.
What if they’re from a poinsettia?
Oh, so we’re gonna be picky about it, huh?
J/K. I stand corrected, and thanks for that extra little bit of decorating, there, Walloon
Quasi
Incidentally, this is about my favorite Christmas song ever, perhaps following Jethro Tull’s eponymous Christmas Song. And, incidentally, it quotes the aforementioned Kijie suite by Prokofiev.
The lyric to What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? suggests that the invitation is being extended well advance of New Year’s Eve, perhaps as long as a several of months.
And yet it still gets airplay on KOST-103-FM during the All Holiday Music, All the Time weeks preceding the 25th of December.
Of course, it’s all subject to interpretation.