Pop Wow: Is it too early for Christmas songs?

Are George Michael and wistfulness ever really out of season?

Nov 03, 2023

This morning, Broadway goddess Stephanie J. Block—

Stephanie J. Block—

—Yeah, she’s great—

Now, I realize it’s only November 3^rd. Halloween was literally Tuesday. (I was the bottom half of an inflated unicorn. There was no top half. It was messy.)

We haven’t even gotten a single Thanksgiving think piece yet, let alone finalized our menus or lists of off-limit topics. How can we possibly be contemplating listening to Christmas songs?

I’ve seen other people say things like this, many of which amount to “Settle down Starbucks, I’m not done with pumpkin spice yet.” (I am at Starbucks as I write this, and I can confirm, holiday cheer is here.) There’s that feeling of Hey world, don’t rush me.

I can appreciate that. When you go into Macy’s and you’re suddenly inundated with garlands and lights and Mariah Carey, it can feel weirdly similar to being jumped in an alley. Except instead of beating you up and taking all your money they want to force feed you candy-colored joy and take all of your money.

By “fantasy of Christmas,” they mean “inescapable nightmare Hellscape.”

But I also know that every year I look forward to the idea of spending those weeks before Christmas sipping peppermint hot chocolate, writing Christmas cards and letting the songs and sights of Christmas draw me to a place of quiet and reflection. It’s a time to look back with wonder—What happened to me this year? And where am I going?

And almost without exception that never happens. Because the weeks before Christmas are a clown car of holiday parties and children’s pageants and shopping and traveling and family and sometimes slush and crowds, my God the crowds. Even if I get an afternoon to command a corner of a coffee shop and let their Christmas playlist take me away, it’s like I’m coming up for air while the waves lap outside at the windows, waiting for me. In a season that invites us to a wistful consideration of the bigger picture, of where we are and sometimes what we’ve lost, most of us at best are able to seize moments of respite.

And so, I ask, why not start listening to Christmas songs right now, before the storm hits? Truly. Because it seems to me that it may be that’s the only way we get to have that quiet reflective time that the season seems to naturally invite us into.

After I entered the Jesuits I learned that there’s a whole other Catholic drama about when it’s okay to start celebrating, when to put up a Christmas tree or listen to Christmas songs or put the baby Jesus in the manger. Nobody puts baby Jesus in the manger!

(Yep, I just Dirty Dancing’d the birth of Jesus. Patrick Swayze is like a black turtleneck: He goes with everything.)

Don’t ask me what the correct dates for Catholics were. I was too busy spiking the egg nog. But for those with that kind of programming on the old hard drive, maybe it helps to remember that when he grew up Jesus was the guy who said the rules about what you can and can’t do on the sabbath were pretty dumb, because sabbath was made for us, not vice versa.

For those interested in that early start, here’s a couple places you might start.

My Favorite Things, by Leslie Odom

Very mellow, very jazzy. The kind of song that travels with you long after it’s over, and somehow makes everything easier.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Sufjan Stevens

A quiet, kind-hearted anthem that somehow builds to a place of such feeling.

Abigail’s Song (Silence is All You Know), Doctor Who “A Christmas Carol”

For a long time Doctor Who did a Christmas episode each year. And one of the greatest is a retelling of A Christmas Carol, with Michael Gambon as Scrooge and opera singer Katherine Jenkins as the woman he has always loved. At the very end, she sings this beautiful song about loneliness and waiting and comfort.

If you want to see it in context, here’s the scene. (FYI: It involves a crashing space ship and flying sharks.)

New York, I Love it When You’re Mean, Julian Velard

I know this sounds like a joke, and not terribly holiday-esque. But it’s actually this gentle little love song about living in New York (and maybe big city living in general). If you’ve never heard of Julian Velard, he’s very worth looking up.

Somehow for me songs about New York are by nature Christmas songs. I wonder why?

Heal the Pain, George Michael

For those for whom “Last Christmas” is a bridge too far for now, can I suggest this other great George Michael song. Again, it’s not explicitly a Christmas song, though it was used in the film Last Christmas—

*which is seriously so good, go watch Last Christmas*.

But again it has such a tender quality, like being held unexpectedly on a rough, cold night. And the refrain is just so satisfying.

I’m realizing how many of these songs are not your typical Christmas/holiday songs. In part, I’m trying to suggest a couple I haven’t mentioned here before. But I think there’s something to it, too. Christmas songs for me are often more about the space they draw me into than what they refer to.

I would say that it’s probably too early for me to go the full Mariah. (Way, way, way too early.) But if listening to Christmas songs now can help me escape the building hurly-burly of the season and be more present to the moment, if they can help me hear the crunch of the leaves under my feet, contemplate the winter sunlight as it paints everything around us soft and pale and appreciate this crazy winding road of Starbucks sessions and half unicorns and Roadhouse Jesus, I’m here for it.