The arrival of the Christmas season lifts my spirits every year. I love the smiles and good wishes we seem to exchange so freely and the peace I feel in my heart that honestly is not present in such quantity through much of the year.

I especially love the Christmas carols that play in most stores and over the sound systems in shopping malls. There is something about them that affects me. Some of these songs are beautiful, with gorgeous melodies and fantastic orchestral arrangements. I have five satellite Christmas stations programmed into my car radio and I’ve been listening to them since the early part of November, although only when I am alone in the car. My wife is not as enthusiastic about the season as I am, probably because she spent fifteen+ years working for one of the biggest department stores in North America and had to put up with the music, insensitive customers, etc. every year.

Although I love carols and just about everything else regarding the season, I have a bone to pick with the programmers about what they call a Christmas carol. Too many of them are just songs! To prove my point, I present a list of five “carols” that are not:

1. 1. My Favorite Things – Who in their right mind thinks this has anything to do with Christmas? The song consists of what the lyricist favors, but nowhere in any of the verses is Christmas even mentioned.
   2. Jingle Bells – This is a song about a horse and a sleigh ride that goes horribly wrong. Where is the joy in that?
   3. Winter Wonderland – A depressing song to me, mainly because I am not a big fan of winter. I had no problem with the season when I lived in Hawaii, because I didn’t have to put up with the snow or cold. Like the other songs, Christmas is not mentioned, so why is this considered a carol?
   4. Sleigh Ride – Not a Christmas carol, or even about Christmas. I like the song, especially the version by Leroy Anderson, who composed the tune. His upbeat tempo and arrangement is the best treatment of this composition by anyone. I like the lyrics, which were written in 1950, and usually sing along when I hear the song, but I prefer his instrumental rendition.
   5. I Believe in Father Christmas – Greg Lake wrote this not as a Christmas carol, but as a protest concerning the rampant commercialization of the season. I think it’s a bit ironic that this song, which he meant as a condemnation of how the holiday had changed for the worse, is now lauded as a wonderfully uplifting Christmas carol! And to add to the irony, YouTube has a video of him with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame performing the song at St. Bride’s Church in London as part of a Christmas celebration service. One of the best versions, next to the original, but I suspect the parson did not research the history of the composition or listen to the words before asking Mr. Lake to perform it.

I don’t hate any of the songs on my list, but they are not Christmas carols. I confess that I absolutely love “I Believe in Father Christmas”. The melody is wonderful, and that underlying theme that plays between verses is taken from Prokofiev’s Troika. In my opinion, it fits the song perfectly. If you listen to the lyrics, there is not a single uplifting sentence in the entire song, although the final scene, where the returning soldier is greeted by a person we assume is his son is a nice touch. The video is fairly innocuous until you get to the final thirty seconds, where it changes to footage from the war in Vietnam, which ended the previous April, and a tank battle that looks like it is from one of the Arab-Israeli conflicts. I prefer to just listen to the music because it is fantastic. On the odd occasions that I pay attention to the video, it is to look at the guitar he is playing.

What do you think? Am I wrong about these songs? Let me know in the comments.

Merry Christmas.