I'm Dreaming of a White (Pages) Christmas

What are Christmas songs trying to teach us? A partial taxonomy

Top notes:

This is a nonsense essay, written during an international moment that is anything but trivial. If that doesn’t match where you’re at right now (particularly those of you who, like me, are trying to devote as much energy as possible to action for a ceasefire in Gaza) I completely understand. Totally ok to sit this one out. I hope that last week’s essay spoke more directly to your heart. Keep agitating, friends.

Also: I’m keeping this one open to all subscribers (even though it’s the kind of essay I often save for a paywalled bonus for subscribers). Why? Well, it’s like Mariah once said (sort of) “I don’t want a paywalled essay/underneath the Christmas tree.” If you do want to support my work, a paid subscription goes a long way to helping me continue to afford childcare.

Most of all, though, it is a gift to have you here, all of you. Always. And to those of you currently celebrating Chanukah, I am sincerely sorry for one more reminder of how, even during these eight nights, Christmas music is still inescapable.

Contrary to the assertions of many of our finest Fox and Friends chyrons, the United States is not, in fact, a Christian nation. We are a deeply imperfect and inequitable place, but one of our better qualities is that we are home to a wide range of believers and non-believers of every stripe.

For at least two months, though, we are, inescapably, a Christmas music nation. It is the diegetic soundtrack to daily life for a full sixth of the year— in stores, in waiting rooms, on what feels like half the radio dial.

Now personally, I am a non-combatant in disputes over Christmas music. I both grew up in and currently raise my kids in a Christmas-celebrating household, and there is a single Christmas album that I love with a singularly intense nostalgic ferocity (“John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together”), but otherwise I am neither a deliberate seeker-outer of Christmas music nor a Grinch-y hater. My take? Christmas music is decidedly fine, except when it is transcendent… or when it’s awful.

Let’s go deeper, though. Amongst other topics, this newsletter is interested in what lessons we learn, implicitly or explicitly, from the cultural soup that surrounds us. And it doesn’t take a PhD in Critical Holiday Studies to identify that there is a singular, social hierarchy-reinforcing message in the traditional Christmas music canon (namely that the normative experience of Westernness is not only Christian but also White, heterosexual, etc. etc.). Pretty obvious, but it probably bears repeating.

The thing about Christmas music, though, is that there’s that macro message, about whose Western experience is considered normal and whose is considered foreign. But then there’s also the micro messages of the songs themselves, which are, well… usually pretty weird. Immensely weird, in some cases. And so, in the interest of paying more rather than less attention to the both hierarchy-reinforcing and deeply bizarre air that we breathe, I offer the following taxonomy. Yes, it’s incomplete. Do you know how many Christmas songs there are? More than all the grains of sands on all the world’s beaches! But it’s a start.

WHAT ARE CHRISTMAS SONGS TEACHING US?

Love is more important than any material gift you could ever receive (a statement that is both very true and slightly incongruous with the fact that you are most likely to encounter Christmas music is in a place of commerce).

Representative song: “All I Want For Christmas Is You”

I don’t know if there are any other songs in this category. I assume there are, but maybe that’s just because I live in a world of Mariah Carey’s creation. She has become Yule, destroyer of all other seasonal classics. She is the alpha and omega of the contemporary Christmas experience, out here reminding us both about all the things that she does not want and all of the Christmas experiences that she is not craving (she’s not even “staying awake to hear those magic reindeer click!” if you can believe it).

One day, the person whom Mariah Carey is waiting for will finally return home and there will be balance in the universe. Until then, we have this song.

You know what time of the year is great? Christmas-time!

Representative song: “The Christmas Song” (Merry Christmas to You)

Now, this is a robust category. No holiday on Earth works harder to reassure you of its good vibes quite like Christmas. Compare the litany of songs about how Christmas is incredible and how everybody has only the best time at Christmas with, say, Halloween music (which is about two topics only: that one time all the monsters in a haunted laboratory invented a dance, and the urgent need to bust ghosts). Whether you are being encouraged to “have a holly jolly Christmas” or being reminded that it is a “Wonderful Christmastime” or being wished a Merry Christmas (in English AND Spanish!) from the bottom of José Feliciano’s heart, even if you generally enjoy the Christmas season (which I do!), you still have to admit… this holiday doth protest too much.

Counterpoint: Do you know what time is stressful, sad and/or lonely? Christmas!

Representative song: “Blue Christmas”

Now this is what I call a marketplace of ideas! This is what I’m told the intolerant left wants to take away from our university campuses! That thing that some people love? What if I told you that other people hate it!

[A non-jokey aside: As I was crowd-sourcing ideas for this list, I was reminded of the best song in this category, Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December” which is one of the few Christmas songs that tackles the economic stress of the season on working class families. Pretty great song! Neither holly nor jolly!].

Relatedly: Family and relationships during Christmas??? Ugh!!!

Representative song: "Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)”

What an all time great use of parentheses right there. It’s up there with “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” which isn’t generally considered a Christmas song, but stick with me here… what if Meatloaf was in conversation with Mariah Carey this whole time and the one thing he wouldn’t do for love is come home to Mariah on Christmas?!? And that’s the ONLY THING SHE WANTS! And she sells her hair to buy him a fob chain! And he sells his watch to buy her a comb! AHHHHHHHH!

Santa Claus is all powerful and should be feared and revered

Representative song: “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town”

There are levels to this one. Start, if you will, with “Little Saint Nick,” in which Santa Claus is an obsessive hot-rodder known for his commitment to sled maintenance. Hip Santa just loves wearing goggles and going “cruisin.’” Groovy, right?

But just as you’ve come to accept this vision of benevolent greaser Santa Claus into your heart, “Here Comes Santa Claus" rolls up to complicate matters. Yes, he’s coming “right down Santa Claus lane” and there’s all these bells ringing and children singing, but now there’s a slightly foreboding chill in the air:

“So hang your stockings and say your prayers, 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight…”

Say. Your. Prayers.

The purpose of all of this, naturally, is to lay down the proper preparatory runway for “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town,” a song in which the world’s most famous red suit wearer represents big government not in the benevolent social democratic welfare state sense, but in the scary Patriot Act surveillance state sense. My guy knows when you’ve been sleeping! He commands you not to pout! Or cry! Which is different from pouting! And you’d better believe that he has a list! You thought he was just up there in the North Pole, wearing goggles and polishing his sleigh? Oh buddy, it’s a full Cointelpro operation. Santa Claus may be comin’ to town, but in a world that is fully beholden to a punitive, carceral logic, he never actually left.

…and also he’s super hot

Representative song: “Santa Baby”

I am not the first person to point out the metric ton of Christmas songs that concern themselves with the desire to make romance with one Mr. “Jolly” Saint Nicholas. What do you think it is? The beard? The belly? The love of children? The hope that, perhaps if you were to successfully woo Santa, he’d give you all those presents? Whatever it is, I’m not mad. I’m 100% jealous. Do you know how many slightly-to-moderately libidinous songs there are about middle aged Milwaukeeans who write about Whiteness online? NOT ENOUGH!

Actually, Santa Claus is so hot that he may have broken up my family

Representative song: “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

I am aware that there are readings of this song that posit that the “Santa Claus” in question is the narrator’s father in a Santa Claus outfit. Based on all the other available information I have about Santa, I regret to inform you that this reading is incorrect.

It was pretty cool that Jesus was born

Representative song: “Little Drummer Boy”

You know who else gets a lot of love at Christmas? Jesus! Pretty impressive showing for somebody who, to the best of my knowledge, has never traveled the world delivering presents on a magical reindeer-fueled sleigh (while also romancing everybody’s mothers). There are a lot of Christmas songs about Jesus’ birth, but I think this much maligned pa-rum-pa-pa-pumming bop is the most honest. What is humanity’s relationship to religion if not a dichotomy between the sacred belief in something bigger than yourself and the eternal drive to make every situation all about you. “Hey, pretty cool holy baby you all got there! WANT TO HEAR MY SUPER LOUD DRUM???”

Christmas hits different in working class Black neighborhoods

Representative song: “Christmas in Hollis”

So many great songs in this category. “Christmas in Hollis” is a classic, of course, and is the only Christmas song to discuss food where the culinary offerings actually sound delicious (chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Run D.M.C. raises you “Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens/rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese…”). I love Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ “No Chimneys in the Projects” as well, but I want to give special recognition here to James Brown’s “Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto” because it features the Godfather of Soul’s unique brand of community concern butting against an unquenchable thirst for self-promotion (he implores Santa to please visit the ghetto, but to also “tell ‘em James Brown sent you!” which is a really funny thing to make Santa say).

“Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christm… oh, um, a quick note first.. just so you know, I am here primarily at the urging of The Godfather of Soul.. the Hardest Working Man in Show Business…. Jaaaaammmmes Brown!”

The fact that we are wishing you a merry Christmas gives us full right to demand that you give us figgy pudding and/or hula hoops

Representative song: “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”

I love these songs. Their “ugh, listen, I said the thing I was supposed to say, now can we get down to brass tacks?” energy reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom made me write thank you letters that were at least five sentences long and my fifth sentence would be something like “Ok, I think I’m done now can I please stop?”

Also, this is the category where I acknowledge the existence of Alvin and the Chipmunks. What a world, right? Entire characters based around the fact that when you play a record fast, the voices sound funny! We can be pretty delightful sometimes, us human beings!

SNOW!

Representative song: “White Christmas”

As somebody who has lived almost his entire life in the part of the country that is often denigrated for its cold weather and harsh winter storms, I want to thank Big Snow’s investment in Christmas music marketing. The only mistake we made was not keeping it going the rest of the winter. Once I make my first billion, I’m commissioning Olivia Rodrigo and BTS to perform a song called “It’s February (And I Love That I Still Can’t Feel My Hands When I Walk Outside! This Is Good, Actually!).”

BELLS!

Representative song: “Carol of the Bells”

You’d think I’d pick "Jingle Bells” for this one, but I appreciate the audacity of “Carol of the Bells” for devoting an entire song to the concept of “let’s make a bunch of singers pretend to sound like bells!” Does it make for a good song? NO! Not at all! I far prefer that one dude pa-rum-pa-pum-pumming all over Jesus’s manger. But points for trying!

REGRET! AND LOVELORN NOSTALGIA! BUT MOSTLY REGRET (IN A WAY THAT IS BOTH DEEPLY PERSONAL AND SOMEHOW CONNECTED TO THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ENTIRE IRISH DIASPORA!)

Representative song: “Fairytale of New York”

R.I.P. Shane MacGowan

Remember how, during a previous Christmas season, you were a jerk to one or both members of the 1980s pop group WHAM!? Well, bad news for you, because you will not be receiving their heart this year

Representative song: Oddly enough, also “Carol of the Bells”

I mean, you can’t tell me that’s not what that song’s about… you literally can’t make out any of the lyrics.

As an aside, my fifth grader (who is not on TikTok, but who is kept abreast of TikTok by his classmates) informed me that there is now a Gen Alpha slang version of “Last Christmas” called “Last Rizzmas” and I feel 1000 years old typing that sentence.

I am calling it quits here and I’m sure I’ve somehow missed an essential category, but such is life!

I didn’t even include the song that, just last year, I declared my favorite Christmas song of all time! Mistakes were made! Klappa på!

End notes:

On one hand, you don’t NEED another Christmas playlist, but it also felt weird talking about all these songs without compiling them all together, so here you go! My gift to you! On Spotify and Apple Music!

Speaking of gifts, last week I received very kind endorsements for The Right Kind of White from authors whom I admire deeply. You can check out the first batch of them (more coming soon) at this link. Just click on the section called “raves and reviews.” Seriously, jeez. I’m verklempt.

And as always, if you pre-order the book (which you can do at that link above), I’d like to give you a small gift in return. All you have to do is fill out that google form. Thanks! Sincerely! From my house to yours!