Yuletide Carols: Christmas Music!

[mrspickles]

Nov 26, 2016 1:26:46 GMT -4 mrpeanut said:

I love O Holy Night and played it at my first piano recital when I was 10.

Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) may be my favorite Christmas song ever, though.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[ratscabies]

I hate Wonderful Christmastime so much, I just twitched from merely reading it.

And for that, and also for a former mod who recently got her degree in Jolly 'ol England:

KRIM-MA!

Yeah, I said it!

[narm]

Wonderful Christmastime gives me anxiety just thinking about it. There's just so much going on in that song!

Also, "Christmas" makes my teeth itch and I was so glad when we did away with it. I know Christmas isn't a religious holiday for all by any means, but it still just kinda bugged me. *slinks away*

[cabbagekid]

My iPod was on random shuffle while I washed dishes this morning and "I Still Believe in Santa Claus" from New Kids on the Block played. And it brought back so many nice childhood memories. I really did love my NKOTB Christmas album.

Also, James Taylor's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" always makes me emotional. It's only his version, I'm totally fine witb all the other versions out there.

[Nysha]

Can I still be a Christian and hate the song "Mary, did you know"? I don't know why, but this song just sets my teeth on edge and everybody else seems to love it. I'm on the board for a local non-profit that is putting on a Christmas Concert where 5 of the performers wanted to sing this song. Ugh, bad enough I'm going to have to sit through it once.

[chonies]

I haven't ever heard the song but I looked up the lyrics and...ew. You can do whatever you want, nysha, and I support this decision.

[eclair]

I am happily unfamiliar with that song, and I trust that that's a good thing.

Edited because, whoops, I thought I was in the peeves thread. Never mind....

[chonies]

The more I think about "Mary, did you know?" the angrier I get. The entire song is mansplaining to Mary, and I'm no Biblical scholar, but Luke makes it pretty clear that Mary was like, "WTF...IDEK," and the angel-messenger Gabriel was like, "check this out" and Mary was all, "ok, I guess." Gabriel's terms were pretty clear. "Mary, Did You Know?" enrages me because it takes everything interesting about the whole bearer-of-the messiah story and guts it, and turns the mother of god into a big dummy without any agency or specialness. I mean, in the text she has doubts and is like, that's not even a thing, but then thinks it through with her heart and her mind, and then is all in. Obviously, it's hard to tell what would have happened if Mary had answered, "no thanks" or continued to express doubts about the scientific accuracy of the thing. I have a special fondness for Mary, so this is really cheesing me off. And it will probably never be as pretty as any version of "Angel Gabriel/Gabriel's Message." So there.

ETA: I don't mean this post to be disrespectful, especially having written it in text-speak. I'm not a believer, but I like reading about Mary, and this really got under my skin.

[chiquita]

I was unfamiliar with Mary Did You Know, and I wish I hadn't looked up the lyrics. Yes, she did know. I'm pretty sure she clued in when the angel came and told her she was going to become pregnant via the Holy Spirit and her child would "be great and will be called Son of the Most High" . . . "the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." (Luke 1:32,35) - I was so annoyed I pulled out my Bible to get it right.

My favorite Mary-related Christmas song is Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven." I love it because it touches on just how unsettling the whole situation must have been for her and how much faith she had to have.

[chonies]

Thank you, chiquita! I normally don't dig deep into source material*, and I suppose it's reasonable to argue that perhaps Mary didn't know that the son of god would walk on water, but the rest was made pretty clear.

*for a lot of pop culture, anyway.