It is assumed by many believers that Christmas music has some religious significance, perhaps even a Biblical foundation. And yet the most likely candidate scripture for such a justification, the “heavenly host” of angels that greets the shepherds in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, is much less a choral performance than a heraldic announcement. And though religious music, even associated with the incarnation of Jesus, has existed for centuries, our musical traditions with the holiday have arrived through the influence of pagan practices. Wassailing, for example, still carries notes of harvest worship, social inversion, and solstice-cheer that characterized the ancient festivals of Yule and Saturnalia.
Note these verses from the Cornish Wassail:
O Master and Mistress
Sitting down by the fire
While we poor wassail boys
Are traveling the mire.This ancient house
We will kindly salute
It is an old custom
You need not dispute.We hope that your apple trees
Will prosper and bear
And bring forth good cider
When we come next year.We hope that your barley
Will prosper and grow
That you may have plenty
And some to bestow.
Popular religiously-themed Christmas songs were produced in earnest following the Protestant Reformation, including carols by Martin Luther and Charles Wesley. But although religious carols became even more popular up to and throughout the 19th century, the 20th century saw a surge in secular Christmas music, centered initially on the character of Santa Claus. Thanks to the country-western singer Gene Autry, we have “Here Comes Santa Claus” as well as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in our cultural consciousness, and other popular singers such as Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, and Mel Torme sang about love, fun, and family, rather than about the birth of a Jewish baby in first-century Judea.
Today’s popular Christmas music is just as much about cashing in on an easily marketable product as it is about celebrating a holiday. Christmas music used to be a communal activity that brought members of a village or town together during the darkest night of the year; now it’s available 24 hours a day on your FM radio, starting at Thanksgiving. At the risk of waxing cynical, I suspect that saturating our senses with Christmas-themed decorations, music, smells, and tastes is the surest way to get Americans to open their pocketbooks and get “in the spirit,” so to speak.
Whether it’s “O Holy Night” or “Here We Come A-Wassailing,” I’d much prefer to have Christmas music limited to Christmas itself, performed live and together by people who enjoy the participation, not just as background noise for people to wrap presents.
