Why do you or don't you like Christmas Music?

[Feralpeg]

Based on the other thread, I see that there are folk who love Christmas music and others that don't seem to like it all. I'm just curious. Why do you feel the way you do about Christmas music?

For me, Christmas music brings so many good memories. We'd listen to Christmas music from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I remember my family shopping for and decorating a Christmas tree. I remember helping my mom bake Christmas cookies. I remember sitting for hours making lists of what I wanted for Christmas while looking at the Sears catalog (we called it the wish book). I remember watching the shows on television that played Christmas music. Our entire family would watch them together. I remember how much I loved learning the songs for our Christmas programs at school.

When I grew up and had my daughter, we listened to all of the Christmas songs. We copied many of the traditions I had experienced with my family growing up. DD and I love to put on Christmas music and drive around looking at all the houses decorated.

I also love going to the mall at Christmas time. I love listening to the Christmas music and seeing all the decorations. It always puts me in a great mood!

What about you?

 

[omghidanielle]

Christmas has always been a really overly-intense holiday for me. I don't enjoy it at all. Christmas music is very vital in the 'spirit' of the holiday, thus my distaste for it.

My family always gets so hysterical over every little detail that goes 'wrong' that it always wound up being really tense and uncomfortable, when, in reality, if you just went with it and/or let it go, we could have a really nice day. It's to the point now where NO ONE in the family wants to 'go through the trouble' to have everyone at their house on Christmas Day, so we have to rent a VFW hall to get together. It's awful, cold, not at all festive, and it's all because everyone is so wrapped up in the 'I did this, why can't she do that, well, I'm not going to do it because he didn't do it...' garbage. I understand these are the kinds of things that happen when you have a family of about 50 people, but c'mon, nobody? It's depressing!

I also can't really stomach the constant 'need to have everything' mentality that a lot of people get when it starts to get close to Christmas. We had to stop doing Pollyannas in our family because people would get jealous of what you got their kid vs what their kid got. We now do Cutthroat Christmas or Pirate Pollyanna, where we bring 'gag' gifts, and people STILL get jealous and angry! I didn't think I'd ever see anyone argue over the fairness of winning Grandpa's birthday cards from last year vs the diaper filled with hershey's kisses!

These are the kinds of arguments that erupt, but in all seriousness, they start before Thanksgiving, and lead all the way up until New Years. It's deafening.

Ack it's so frustrating and thinking about it is making me feel it!

Maybe we should go to WDW to get away from them?
Then I'll be able to enjoy Christmas music!

 

[DaisyLynn]

I love Christmas music for all of the reasons that OP had said above. It fills my heart with memories of Christmas when I was a child and memories of working in the mall with my "second family" for many, many years. Any of you folks who work retail may or may not agree with that last reason of mine, and I thought I "hated" every minute of being a retail manager during the holidays. But I do miss it now!

 

[bicker]

For me, Christmas music brings so many good memories.

And I think a lot of people don't like Christmas music for one of two related reasons: First, for many, the holidays have always been stressful, and that has been reflected in them having more memorable bad experiences associated with the holidays than good experiences. Second, for many others, it wasn't their holiday, so they have no specific associations (positive or negative) to the music (except, perhaps, as something of someone else's essentially imposed on them for six weeks each year), and, as others have alluded to, that music is objectively overplayed during the holidays. If any other specific set of songs were played as much, let's say, every September, without the underpinnings of social context that Christmas songs have for a significant number of folks in our society, there would be a revolt!

 

[stacy347]

Any of you folks who work retail may or may not agree with that last reason of mine, and I thought I "hated" every minute of being a retail manager during the holidays. But I do miss it now!

I definitely know what you mean. As crazy as it is, Christmas season is the most enjoyable for me in retail. Yes, you do get a few loonies who try to trample people for a video game ~ but you also get a steady stream of people who are in a very good mood.
I may be on here singing a different tune in a few weeks after I've been cussed out by one of the above mentioned loonies , but it's still my favorite time!

And to answer Peg's question ~ I love Christmas music for the memories, too. I play it in the car from Thanksgiving to Christmas and love every minute of it!

The store where I work chooses not to play music of any kind at any time so for those of you who don't like to be bombarded with it, please come shop with us, LOL!!

 

[olena]

I love Christmas music.....especially Renaissance motets and carols, Handel's Messiah, instrumentals, etc. I'm just not a big fan of pop or country Christmas music, although I like some of it. I just tend to prefer the traditional stuff and I love traditional Christmas songs from other cultures and languages, too.

 

[susykt4]

Hate it! Christmas was always stressful for me when I was a kid. Endless family functions. I usually got grounded for not talking to my cousins enough. I was a terrible singer but usually got grounded for not singing "loud enough" at the Sunday School Christmas program. I was a shy little kid but my mom wanted me to be the superstar of all events and I certainly wasn't. This will sound ridiculous and petty, but all of my friends were showered with amazing presents and I got a couple of small things because presents were not the point of the season. Christmas has always been my least favorite holiday and the music (that was already playing in Wal-Mart yesterday) drives me nuts!

 

[kydisneyfans]

The problem is that the radio stations play the same 20-25 Christmas songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, so that by Thanksgiving you are already sick of them.

I like the variety that XM gives and find that I enjoy it more now that I have more options to listen.

 

[antmaril]

The problem is that the radio stations play the same 20-25 Christmas songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, so that by Thanksgiving you are already sick of them.

I like the variety that XM gives and find that I enjoy it more now that I have more options to listen.

I agree with you. I LOVE Christmas music, but the radio stations have such small play lists that it drives me crazy. There is so much wonderful music to choose from and they keep playing the same songs over and over and over and over. I don't think they give their listeners enough credit. They assume we only want to hear those same songs again and again.

 

[gina2000]

I love Gregorian chants, bell ringing, and a judicious amount of Christmas music. I think it's been so over-hyped at this point that the music is pointless. I avoid malls with a vengence because by this time of the year they're already decorating for Christmas. I love Christmas but I don't love having it everywhere, all the time, from Halloween to Christmas.

I also dislike the idea that by December 26, Christmas is over. Christmas isn't over for me til 12th night. It's a time of visiting and partying. That's when Christmas music is most meaningful to me.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I love music in general, from rap to Liberace to Broadway musicals.

Christmas music invokes a certain peace, fun, and happy & sad memories for me.

It also will bring me down a few pegs to remind me that simplicity of life with your family is important.

 

[MIGrandma]

I have wonderful memories of Christmas as a child. We had a small family, so it was just us, my aunt and uncle and their kids, and my grandparents. Always a huge dinner, nobody got upset or fussed about anything, it was wonderful. We always had a real tree and Mom had a few Christmas albums that got played on the stereo.

When I got married I just continued on in the same way, decorated the house for Christmas, and I started my own collection of albums, then cassettes, and now CD's of holiday music. I have a lot of the "traditional" Christmas carols, so now I am a little more picky in what I buy. I prefer buying CD's that have more new and original songs, rather than the old traditional stuff. And I love stuff like Manheim and TSO too. My absolute favorites are "The Waltons" Christmas album from 1974 (I think) and their reunion CD from a couple of years ago. Those two get played more than any others.

I enjoy shopping for my family, wrapping gifts, sending out cards, baking, driving around the towns and seeing all the lights, the Living Nativity that one local church does every year, candlelight services, the snow, just everything about Christmas is wonderful and I look forward to it every year. And having family "come home" for Christmas, it's wonderful.

 

[Feralpeg]

Thank you to those of you who answered. My heart goes out to those of you who have not been able to enjoy Christmas with the peace that it should bring. This just makes me realize how lucky I am in so many respects.

 

[AmericangirlinFrance]

I love Christmas music.....especially Renaissance motets and carols, Handel's Messiah, instrumentals, etc. I'm just not a big fan of pop or country Christmas music, although I like some of it. I just tend to prefer the traditional stuff and I love traditional Christmas songs from other cultures and languages, too.

Me too. The Christmas music I like is not played on the radio or in stores. I'm sure there are many that a lot of people have never heard of! I like it because it is beautiful. And sometimes I even listen to it at other times of the year...