Fa-la-la, and all that

Time to set the radio dial to your favorite Christmas station, crank it up, and rip the knob off.

Most everything about the Christmas season makes me happy, from twinkly lights to the absurdity of a tree in my living room. But way up high on the Great Things About Christmas list is the music.

I hands-down love walking through a store while singing along to whatever goofy holiday tune is blaring over the loudspeakers, or bopping to a Pandora Christmas playlist while I tidy the kitchen. In the privacy of my car, I accompany the local radio station at top volume, delighting equally in the chills of “O Holy Night” and the silliness of belting out, “Thumpety, thump thump, thumpety, thump thump, look at Frosty go!”

You can’t make a strong case that all Christmas music is good. I mean, "Last Christmas" by Wham!. Enough said.

Still, there’s something special about the music of the season that can’t be matched any other time of year.

Christmas music links us to the past. Nostalgia oozes from centuries-old Christmas hymns, the kind sung in four-part harmony in church sanctuaries hung with garland as children gaze into tipsy candles and elderly women wipe tears from their cheeks.

With the opening strains of “Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful,” I’m a girl in a church pew between my parents, leaning into my mom’s soft alto and my dad’s deep bass. “Away in a Manger” whisks me to children’s Christmas programs and wiggly little ones and sticky fingers from tight-clutched candy canes. “Silent Night” eases into my ear, and suddenly I’m singing auf Deutsch, caressing the German words as they roll over the back of my tongue.

The songs don’t have to have deep meaning or linked-in memories to set my toes a-tapping, though. Give me some "Jingle Bell Rock" or “Santa Baby” (1953 Eartha Kitt version, please) or, heck, even “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” and I’ll sing along, happy as an elf.

Christmas music offers us a lot to love. But one reason we embrace it has nothing to do with cherished memories or religious meaning or even the holiday at all.

I think it makes us happy because we just like singing.

Sure, we have the whole rest of the year to sing. Christmas songs, though ― we know those. They are ingrained in our brains, played over and over December after December in version after version until they are a part of us. And something about the season gives us permission to sing, even if someone might hear us.

And a good sing just feels good. Singing releases endorphins, those squirrelly little chemicals that tell the body everything’s OK. How cool is that? Singing Christmas songs actually creates physical changes that help us cope with the parts of our lives that aren’t merry and bright.

The holiday season, with all its glitter and sparkle, can be tough. The joy of gift-giving takes hard hits from a bank account in turmoil. Unrealistic expectations hold peace out of reach. Burdens weigh heavier when everyone else seems downright jolly.

Christmas music can’t offer the balm to all wounds. But it helps. Singing helps. Doing one little thing to make yourself feel better, like belting out the ridiculous words to a silly song at a stoplight, helps. It makes the not-great a tiny bit better.

It turns out that, at least according to a bunch of internet sites, singing is even better for you when you do it with other people. Shared singing experiences offer all kinds of mental and physical benefits, including a feeling of belonging and connection.

We can’t all join a choir ― although I appreciate those of you who do, because I love listening to you. But Christmas music is never really sung alone. When you go tell it on a mountain, you’re lifting your voice with folks all over the world, all of us soaking in those beloved words and reveling in the melodies of our youths and caroling together in our cars and kitchens and department stores, a separate but united choir all around the world.

And, really, isn’t that when we’re at our best ― when we sing together? Isn’t together how we best confront our troubles and soothe our stresses and heal our hurts? Alone, I can raise my small voice and make things a little better, for me and for those around me. But, together, a choir swelling the ancient song of hope and peace and love for our fellow man, we right wrongs. We share joy. We give. We heal. We restore.

You’ve got a few weeks left to revel in the music of the season. Crank it up and sing away. 

I’ll be singing with you.