Are You Having a "Holly Jolly Christmas"?

As soon as you hear the words "Holly Jolly Christmas" how many of you instantly heard Burl Ives singing in your head?  James Lileks has some thoughts on the Christmas music we hear everywhere we go:

Thesis: Between the late 40s and the mid 60s all the enduring Christmas music was recorded - the stuff we all know, and hear every year with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Not sure why some of these tunes maintain their appeal, except that they make boomers feel young again; “Jingle Bell Rock,” which seems to be based entirely around the concept of jingling as an expression of enthusiasm, could probably be set aside for a few decades. It would be okay if we were not encouraged to rock around the Christmas tree, however that’s done.

But then there’s the good stuff. The crooners of the 50s, the smooth instrumentals of the 60s, the middlebrow culture that put Eugene Ormandy and Leonard Bernstein on Goodyear-sponsored compilations along with Sammy Davis Jr. and Maurice Chevalier. You can’t have Christmas without the warm jolly voice of Burl Ives - produced by Owen Bradley, who produced Patsy Cline and invented that reverb-heavy “countrypolitan” sound. The lush half-in-the-bag cigarette-smoke melancholy of Jackie Gleason’s Christmas records. To modern ears it has a Mad-Men vibe; it’s Dads in hats and thin lapels. To me it’s dad in a Texaco Unitog uniforms with embroidered names over the pocket coming home on Christmas Eve with a Whitman sampler from the drug store. I hear a certain song in a certain style, and it stops me dead. I’m ten.

There's more at the link.

A couple of years ago I did a piece on the quintessential Christmas songs and who recorded them the very best. I ended up with quite a list and remarked in an earlier post this year that the fastest path to immortality is to record a Christmas song that ends up in regular rotation each year. I didn't notice a lot of new entries on the radio this year, though some more recent artists like Michael Bublé and Josh Groban are making a good effort.

I find myself in the same pattern every year.  The day after Thanksgiving I turn on the local all-Christmas music station and welcome the sounds of the season.  By Christmas Day I'm tired of "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" and am ready for it all to end.  I'm getting to that point.