December is always a magical month, especially if you live in a freezing cold wasteland like myself. Between the time with family, the beautiful lights, and the warm drinks it really doesn’t matter if you celebrate International Ninja Day on December 5th, there is reason no matter what to find joy and whimsy within this time of year. Part of what makes this time of year so magical is the seasonally relevant music of everyone’s favourite previously Christian-centric holiday: Christmas. Throughout my entire life Christmas classics have been a constant, and something I welcome every December first on the dot to help warm the atmosphere of the cold Canadian winter. Unfortunately for the Canadian atmosphere theres been a palpable shift in Christmas music in the last 30+ years, one that at first was occasional and excusable, but as of late has taken over the genre in its entirety.

Dear reader I will ask you simply: why the hell is every Christmas song a love song? Every single year there’s another pop singer who thinks they’re going to change the game with a new Christmas future classic and every single time without fail it’s not about the love and joy spread during the season or the magic of the “Christmas Spirit”, it’s either about a guy who’s stolen your heart, or a man who’s stomped on it. Why is that? I’m not here to say Christmas music should never be about love, because there’s plenty of examples where that’s ok! Christmas is absolutely a time for both platonic and romantic love, it’s in the first half of “cuffing season” for god sake, but the truth is that a lot of these songs just feel like normal pop songs with Jingle Bells (the instrument not the song) laid overtop the normal hyper-polished instrumental. If this was an ocassional thing it probably would not bother me on the level it does, after all Wham!’s classic Last Christmas falls within those guidelines I’ve just denounced, and I’ll be the first to admit that Arianna Grande has made some decent Christmas music, but the problem is that every single modern Christmas song seems to be hitting the exact same boxes.

If we’re to rewind and look at the history of Christmas music you’ll notice a prevelant trend within it, that being that a lot of it dates back to Big Band and Jazz movements from the front half of the 20th century, and the focus among these songs a lot of time was about family, love, and the magic of the mythical figure Santa and his imminent arrival with gifts for all. Personally I always look at Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song as the gold standard for what a Christmas Song should be. It works well because it paints the seasonal imagery so vividly, as if we’re the ones sitting by the fireplace together, soaking in the holiday together. The arrangement with the orchestral strings is magical, and summons this sense of childlike joy that’s so entwined with the season. The Christmas Song is a song that makes me feel something, Santa Tell Me is not. And the only emotions that All I Want For Christmas Is You sparks in me is anger and frustration in the same vein as a rick roll.

Now as much as I’ve done a ton of complaining I will say that Covers of old songs are still pulling their weight, and Michael Bublé has done a great job at keeping that feeling alive, but in terms of Christmas original music we need to all collectively refocus our goals. We have 11 months a year to listen to songs about heartbreak, for this one month in the freezing cold of winter while I am chronically vitamin D deficient (just like the rest of my country), give me something positive and warm to listen to. Transport me back to being a kid and make me feel that spirit again. A fun fact for all artists: you can still make jazz, we haven’t banned it. And while I’m not generally a person who gravitates to that kind of music year round, it’s exactly what I think we need right now. And as for year dear reader? Go get yourself a nice warm drink, get cozy under a blanket, and put on any Christmas movie other than Elf. Enjoy the season, and Merry Christmas from AuraLink.