Holly Jolly Music Memories

There was a time when Christmas music signaled the start of the holiday season. It usually cranked up in stores on the day after Thanksgiving and continued through New Years.

Some ambitious retailer pushed that to mid November and before we knew it, Christmas music season began on November 1. I had barely gotten the Monster Mash out of my head when Brenda Lee started Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.

I ran into the first song of Christmas this year in mid October. The store with the big red dot opened its Christmas tree and ornament display before the costumes and candy had been packed up for the year. It was a little disappointing but not surprising.

Still, I love to hear Christmas music (in late November) because it has the power to transport me back in time. More than any music in my collection (with the possible exception of Stairway to Heaven), Christmas music puts me back in a time and place that is long gone. That place is generally my parent’s living room where toys magically appeared and gifts were exchanged to the tune of Frank Sinatra and the Ray Coniff Singers.

My parents owned a handful of records and rarely listened to them but each December my mother would pull out the Christmas albums – all six of them.

There was Little Drummer Boy by the Harry Simeone Chorale, Burl Ives’ Have A Holly Jolly Christmas, The Sinatra Christmas Album and A Christmas Album by Barbara Streisand. My favorites were Happy Holidays, the Columbia Records anthology sponsored by True Value Hardware and Great Songs For Christmas by Goodyear Tire. They had all of the popular songs by guys like Johnny Mathis, Al Martino and Bing Crosby.

It wasn’t our favorite kind of music but it set the mood and we all had our favorites. At the same time, our AM radio pumped out the classic “rock and roll” holiday tunes like Jingle Bell Rock, Rockin Around the Christmas Tree and Blue Christmas.

Despite the tens of thousands of Christmas songs recorded by every imaginable artist, the most popular songs still come from the late 1950’s and 1960’s with a few notable exceptions.
White Christmas remains the most popular Christmas song of all time. It was written by Irving Berlin and recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942 for the movie Holiday Inn. It has sold over 100 million copies in 67 years.

WCBS-FM in New York compiled the following top ten list of the most popular Christmas recordings ever. Like them or not, I would bet that every person reading this column could sing along with all ten.

1. White Christmas, 2. The Chipmunk Song, 3. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer; 4. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus; 5. Jingle Bell Rock; 6. The Christmas Song; 7. Snoopy’s Christmas; 8. Here Comes Santa Claus; 9. Little Drummer Boy and 10. Done Esta Santa Claus.
More contemporary artists like Bruce Springsteen, The Carpenters and John Lennon show up in the top twenty list.

For the record – literally – Elvis Presley’s Blue Christmas is the second best selling Christmas album behind Bing Crosby.

I recently asked my teenagers what music reminded them of Christmas and they rattled off songs by Brenda Lee and Bobby Helms. That’s what happens when mom and dad control the holiday soundtrack in your house. It’s the same reason my Christmas memories soundtrack includes Burl Ives.

It makes me wonder if two generations from now, kids will be forced to listen to their parent’s Jessica Simpson Christmas playlist because that’s what mommy listened to when she was a kid.