Another piece from the archives. Worth reading as a reminder of why Winter Holiday music matters.
So how do you approach your midwinter holiday? It all seems to be wrapped up in our imprinting — those early dreams tattooed on our souls. Some folks dive right in, and celebrate away, others wax lyrical about how the holiday season trains us to be good little consumers, and still others turn to alternative rituals creating something new out of threads from the distant. For myself, it’s a time to remember holidays past that were filled with family and church, filled with great music, loads of midwestern comfort food, and the annual fight between my parents about the more technical aspects of decorating the Christmas tree. And going forward through the holidays as adults, we make many choices about what to carry forward, which things to imprint on those following us.
The gifts, the parties, and the anticipation of this holiday show us how to create a frenzy within ourselves as the darkness of winter climaxes. As children, the rituals teach us to suspend disbelief while our anticipation grows to unbearable dimensions; by the time a child actually gets to the unwrapping, so many things have been anticipated, questioned and disregarded that the distinction between what the self knows and consensus reality proclaims has been lost in little minds. Slowly we bcome the adults carrying inevitable residue of this fevered holiday, with its subtext of adult weariness born of late nights wrapping, non-stop cooking, shopping during free moments, and hauling great boxes of decorations from closets for the pleasure of cats and children.
And what has this to do with holiday CDs, you ask? Well, to my mind, the music is such a central part of this season that simply to hear certain carols brings me back to those holiday states of mind — tension mixed with anticipation and a firm determination to enjoy the season and damn the emotional torpedos. Bringing out the holiday music is as much a part of the ritual as baking cookies, pounding out some carols on the family piano, and wrapping presents. These are the types of discs that get played year after year, or discarded if they don’t measure up. With so many lackluster albums out ther, as well as those crass attempts to pander to holiday sentimentality, and separate the holiday shopper from her hard earned coinage, this can be a difficult category to review. My personal holiday tastes run to the traditional and instumental, and I prefer those that refer to the religious or seasonal aspects of the seasons; I loathe those lounge singer holiday albums that go on about Santa bringing diamonds, or snowmen officiating weddings. Give me a holiday album that doesn’t pander to the frenzy, something soothing and instrumental, I say. Now that I’ve warned you, dear reader, on to the discs.
[...] Kim Bates on Winter Holiday music [...]