It’s Christmas – time for joy! If you are a Christian, you’re looking forward to celebrating Christ’s birth with Angels We Have Heard on High and Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming, along with so many others. The purity and beauty of sacred Christmas music delights us.
But… what about the 30+% of Americans who are not Christians, per Gallup? Should we leave them out? Or children, who sometimes just want to sing a song about that jolly old elf, Santa Claus? As our managing editor Chris Queen wrote today, sometimes it takes a while to appreciate religious Christmas music.
What Scrooge would deny children the joy of caroling?
To listen to my colleagues’ Queen and Stephen Kruiser's podcast Faith All Over The Place, you’d think that all secular Christmas music was crass, not about Christmas, and had bad lyrics.
Well. Bad songs are bad songs, no matter the season.
I say, if you hear a secular Christmas song over the loudspeakers at the mall, don’t react like a Puritan in 17th century Massachusetts, where Christmas was outlawed in 1659.
Let’s celebrate the best of non-religious Christmas music. I’ve listed 10 of my favorite secular Christmas songs. (Always Christmas, never winter season. I hold that line!)
10. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. I can’t even write the words without hearing the Burl Ives version. It’s the aural backdrop of the 1964 animated classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Who else watched the show every year?
9. Santa Baby. No one can sing this 1953 charmer the way Eartha Kitt did. Materialistic in good fun. Put this on the hi-fi, and you’re swept away to a grown-up holiday cocktail party, where all the women are sexy and the men are pouring martinis.
8. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Andy Williams recorded this in 1963. Ever since, there’s been “much mistletoeing.” The lyrics’ play on the phrase “hap-happiest season of all” exudes joy.
7. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Judy Garland brought this to life in the 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis. You may be more familiar with Frank Sinatra’s version. These lyrics may bring a tear to your eye, but not because they’re bad:
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
6. Silver Bells. This was one of the first songs I learned to play on the piano, and that’s why it’s near to my heart. The lyrics conjure the vision of crowded Manhattan in December. Writer Ray Evans conjured beauty out of traffic signals:
Strings of streetlights, even stoplights
Blink of bright red and green
As the shoppers rush home with their treasures
My Top Five
5. Jingle Bells. Anyone else read the Little House books as a child? Jingle Bells was what Laura sang out when Almanzo took her out in his new cutter one winter day in Dakota Territory. No, this isn't a racist song at all. Enjoy Frank Sinatra’s sultry voice caress the lyrics in this version.
4. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch. This novelty song is my favorite from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Thurl Ravenscroft was the man who performed it in the 1966 special. His voice lives on in our heads.
3. I’ll be Home for Christmas. This 1943 classic voiced the desires of every GI overseas fighting the good fight in World War II. Bing Crosby sang what they all felt: "I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my heart.”
2. The Christmas Song. Yes, this is the one beginning “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” This barely two-minute song evokes images of warmth and children eagerly anticipating Santa: “Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow.” Plus, it’s sung by Nat King Cole.
1. White Christmas. This is the best-selling Christmas single of all time, winning the Oscar for Best Song in the 1942 motion picture Holiday Inn. Bing Crosby made it so popular he had to re-record the original disc, which wore out from use.
Those are my favorite secular Christmas songs. What are yours?
