Peace, Goodwill, Christmas Hymns

I was once on the verge of becoming a Christmas fundamentalist. So obsessed was I with the idea of reclaiming Advent (which is, after all, a wonderful season that is overlooked by far too many) that I became a bit angry at the thought of putting up Christmas decorations before The Day Itself. Christmas music pumped out over the loud speakers at sundry public places was cause to avoid going anywhere. The Feast of the Incarnation, I was at pains to remind everybody, is properly speaking the start of the Christmas season, which lasts until Epiphany (though one could leave up Christmas decorations until the Feast of the Purification of Mary, Candlemas, on the second of February).

Whether it is a sign of the abandonment of principle or merely the mellowing of age, I am no longer quite so angry to see people celebrating Christmas weeks before the Holiday itself. Advent, after all, is only one of the casualties of liturgical ignorance. (I don't think I'll ever understand Christians whose only vestiges of the church year are Christmas and Easter. But then, they are no doubt bewildered by the sort of High Church pageantry that I enjoy.)

I appreciate, at least, that some people are more pleasant during the Christmas season; there is a general feeling of goodwill that makes it more difficult to be purposefully unpleasant. I suspect this is due, in part, to the music. This is the only time of year when we are permitted to like music written before we were born. This should only be encouraged: Christmas music is perhaps the last widely-known musical repertory that links us to a bygone age. Incidentally, this is also the best model for a body of hymnody: people should be taught all the good old hymns. Anyone advocating all new music in church should observe the emotional connection people have to all their favorite Christmas hymns, and ponder this in their hearts.

This is not to say that all old music, or all music that induces nostalgia, is good music. Consider "The Little Drummer Boy", written in 1941: it is one of the perversely worst-written songs ever made, from a compositional standpoint. But then, nostalgia is not a particularly logical impulse.