This Week’s Theme: Happy Holidays

As I wrote one year ago for the 2021 Happy Holidays Faux Show:

Part two of this four-part, holiday-themed Faux Show series is focused on songs that aren’t part of the holiday canon, but are full of holiday spirit. Unlike last week’s show, this week’s songs are clearly identifiable as holiday music. As usual, they cover a variety of styles, decades, and artists. Some of these are songs that everyone knows, while others are not well-known but fit the theme perfectly.

In order to make this four-show series of holiday music, Ms. Faux and I attempted to break down songs into different categories. Those choices are often subjective, so one could easily argue that some of this week’s songs should have been included in week four’s show of traditional holiday songs (coming soon). Based on our criteria, we had to draw a line somewhere between traditional and non-traditional holiday music. As a whole, this week’s selection of songs presents music that isn’t part of the traditional canon, such as “Jingle Bells” or “Deck the Halls,” but could be part of that canon in the future. The obvious canonical holiday songs are often hymns or carols from over one hundred years ago. However, there are many songs composed in the 20th century which are now part of the canon, such as “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)”, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” and “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Many traditional songs that are not hymns or Christmas carols but are already part of the canon, such as “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” could be defined as songs for children, while others, like “The Christmas Song” were definitely written for an adult audience. But no matter the intended audience, there is one shared feature of these modern-day traditional songs – they are easy to sing.

Carols and hymns are meant to be sung together, in worship or in times of gathering or celebration, and these songs are like that, too. In addition, their popularity has led to them becoming part of our shared cultural heritage. Whether through oral tradition, stories of myths and traditions, or some holiday pop culture nonsense, songs become part of the canon when they are so finely intertwined with the holidays that you can’t remove them from the season. When Mel Torme wrote “The Christmas Song,” there was no way to know that it would become the standard that it is today. Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph” could have just as easily been ignored and lived a life in exile with forgotten songs such as “Santa Claus Came in the Spring” and “Christmas in Jail.” However, the pop music gods deemed those songs to be classics. It appears that songs such as “All I Want For Christmas is You,” “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” are all going to become part of the canon as well, and some would argue that they already are.

Whether or not you agree that this week’s songs are still on the non-traditional side of the holiday canon line, there is no arguing that they are clearly songs that are meant to be enjoyed during the holidays. Hopefully, you can enjoy this week’s show while baking up your first batch of cookies, decorating the tree, or just getting into the holiday spirit.

Artist of the Week: All of Them

Any artist who records holiday music is the artist of the week.

Next week’s show features dozens of renditions of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” If you need more holiday music before then, you can also check out last year’s holiday Faux Shows.

RFS Volume 1, Number 39: Merry Xmas

RFS Volume 1, Number 40: Happy Holidays

RFS Volume 1, Number 41: Ring Them Jingle Bells

RFS Volume 1, Number 42: Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Thanks for listening (and reading)!

• Uncategorized